Archive for June 19th, 2007
Imagine Cup 2007
Korea - Imagine Cup 2007:
India - Imagine Cup 2006:
José de Francisco Lopez 
Chicago, 19 June 07
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This blog’s Long Tail:
References:
- Imaginecup
- Microsoft Labs’ promo: Video: Robit
“Avoid Innovation Traps”
While reading Peter Drucker’s June 19 blog on innovation traps I thought it was worth giving it a spin. So here is my writeup… by the way, no offence taken if you happened to like Drucker’s orginal version better.
Number one: is your innovation strategy missing a reality check?
Passionate innovators falling in love with the elegance or inventiveness of their creations might be working on misfit opportunities without knowing. Authors such as Clayton and Coburn claim that a disproportionate amount of corporate R&D fails to deliver value for the business. Generally speaking, it pays off to conduct market research to understand what trends can help promote or undermine a new product or service.
“The misfit opportunity often looks very tempting–precisely because it looks truly innovative. But even if the innovation does not result in failure–as it usually does–it always requires extraordinarily wasteful amounts of effort, money, and time”.
Having said that, some innovation leaders happen to be visionaries and trend setters, specially when the new product turns out to create a new market category. There have been cases where market research did not support a vision that happened to be right. Early in the history of telecommunications, a prestigious consulting firm delivered market research conveying that AT&T should not develop the mobile market space. The Apple iPod was also strongly critized by industry experts when it was first launched. My favorite reference case is Henry Ford’s statement about people’s clear preference for “faster and stronger horses”, while he went on to build an automotive empire by mass producing cars.
The bottom line here is that it is worth conducting sound market research, it delivers intelligence for your business, but note that’s just one source of input to consider when making investment decisions.
Number two: are you confusing novelty with innovation?
Most would agree that for a new commercial product to earn the “innovation label” the benchmark to meet is customer adoption. This can be measured by the degree of market penetration in the target segments required to deliver a success story. In many cases, this also implies not only the initial product purchase but also repeat usage and purchases, meaning the product is sticky and delivers value to the user.
“The test of an innovation is that it creates value. A novelty creates amusement only”.
Number three: are you confusing motion with action?
Most of us keep really busy, but that does not necessarily mean we happen to be productive at all times. By the same token, product portfolios need to be actively managed (opposed to letting them be cluttered with waste or at the mercy of corporate politics).
There are trade-offs and opportunity costs worth considering when making investment decisions. This translates into allocating resources where they can deliver the most value, thus managing organizational changes. Remember: innovation is about change and risk taking, people working on this kind of projects are often required to develop cross-functional or multi-disciplinary skills and need to be relatively comfortable in unstructured environments.
“To be sure, reorganization is often needed. But it should come after the action–that is, after what must be abandoned has been faced up to. By itself reorganization is just motion and no substitute for action”.
Additional insights:
- Look for adjacent market opportunities, some might eventually turn out to be your core business. Viagra was initially studied for use in hypertension and some form of cardiovascular disease.
- Conduct pilot testing, market research is not a substitute for a small scale trial.
- Allocate an innovation budget, invest today in what will enable the company to remain in business in the future. Otherwise, innovative projects will struggle when beign held hostage by short term business priorities.
- Innovation is about change, this means the equilibrium point for any given business is a moving target: plan, change and re-balance accordingly.
- If a given opportunity qualifies as worth undertaking, first aim, then adjust course as needed. Opposed to taking to long to jumpstart the project then missing the market window in the process.
- Conduct competitive intelligence, differentiate and incorporate the learning from others successes and failures.
José de Francisco Lopez Chicago, 19 June 07
Click here to display my most recent blogs
or click here if you needed info on how to receive my newsfeed.
This blog’s Long Tail:
- Profit driven innovation
- Simplicity
- Democratizing innovation
- The myth of commoditization
- Top 10 innovation myths
- Innovation, a waste of money
- Innovation and cultural differences
- Turning ideas into dollars
- Turning innovation into cash
- Innovation in motion
- Innovation must be managed
- Value innovation
- Lessons not learned
- Powered by innovation
- Spending less on R&D
- The innovation gap
- The innovation gap 2
- The innovation gap 3
- Innovation management is the most sought after skill
- Do CEOs have innovation fatigue?
- Innovation Hype, Enough Already
- How To Live Up To Innovation Hype
- Garage shop innovation
- Made to stick
- Startup.com
- Dean Kamen on innovation
- Tom Peters: innovation is actually easy
- Remember to forget, borrow and learn
- Capturing the elements of innovation
References:
- Peter Drucker’s blog on Branding Strategy Insider.
