Archive for June, 2008
Innovator’s dilemmas: are organizational antibodies good or bad?
“Why can’t companies kill projects that are clearly doomed? (…) the failures I’ve examined resulted, ironically, from a fervent and widespread belief among managers in the inevitability of their projects’ ultimate success. This sentiment typically originates, naturally enough, with a project’s champion; it then spreads throughout the organization, often to the highest levels, reinforcing itself each step of the way. The result is what I call collective belief, and it can lead an otherwise rational organization into some very irrational behavior.”
Read Isabelle Royer’s article, “When Bad Ideas Won’t Die“, on Harvard’s Working Knowledge.
“Exert strong leadership on the innovation strategy and portfolio decisions; integrate innovation into the company’s basic business mentality; align the amount and type of innovation to the company’s business; manage the natural tension between creativity and value capture; neutralize organizational “antibodies”; recognize that the basic unit of innovation is a network that includes people and knowledge both inside and outside the organization; and create the right metrics and rewards for innovation.”
Read Sean Silverthorne’s review of “Making Innovation Work.”
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I just finished reading a couple of articles talking about the negative impact of “organizational antibodies”. This term relates to people as well as corporate behaviors and policies hampering innovation. However, I’m not sure this medical metaphor works. Antibodies happen to be key to our immune system by helping us tackle bacteria and viruses. Based on that fact, metaphorically speaking, one would think that organizational antibodies might not be such a bad thing.
I would suggest reading the above two quotes one more time. It seems to me that the first one questions the role of yespeople and the lack of organizational antibodies. The second one makes a point about neutralizing naysayers to be able to make progress. This shows two extremes of a continuum. Innovators need to aware of the reality of their projects and organizations to drive a project to completion. The same applies to figuring out when to exit a project and to move to the next thing.
| J. de Francisco |  |
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| Chicago, IL. 30 June 08 |  |
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Innovator’s dilemmas: vaporware vs. innovation?
“After being in the mobile phone market for more than a decade, now we would like to divert our attention on innovation. In the near future, one can expect some innovative mobile phones from Samsung (…) “We would like to incorporate the word innovation in our brand value.”
Youngcho Chi, Senior VP, Strategic Planning Team, Samsung Electronics as quoted by Business Standard.
“It’s important to understand how innovation can effect the perceived value of your brand. Done right, innovations can keep your brand fresh and relevant to those people who already know and understand it. Innovation can also open your brand to new market opportunities.”
Mike Bawden’s post “A Little Innovation Goes A Long Way” on Brand Central Station.
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When a company shifts gears to use innovation to build brand value the first set of questions that come to mind happen to be about the specific things that are going to change. In the high-tech market, establishing the innovative quality of a given brand requires an unequivocal commitment to new product and market development leading to serial innovations (unless the company already had innovative products and just didn’t do a good job at marketing them.)
Often times, the word “innovation” is being purposely misused as part of vaporware. That eventually translates into unfulfilled promises and lack of brand credibility. Nonetheless, the fact is that vaporware continues to be leveraged as a short term tactic aimed to either prevent or delay customer decisions on competing products and vendors.
The above issue should not be confused with the kind of thought leadership driven by well intentioned visionaries and market creation efforts involving next generation technologies. In any case, most would agree that an innovation qualifies as such when the concept has been productized and user adoption validates it, thus effectively building brand value.
| J. de Francisco | |
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| Chicago, IL. 26 June 08 | |
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Lucid Touch
Touch screens have become quite popular with the introduction of consumer electronics taking advantage of user friendly interfaces. The difference between the previous generation of touch screens leveraged by many ATMs and multitouch is that the user interface can recognize multiple simultaneous touch points.
The following links provide some more insights on the trouble with computing devices and well known examples of multitouch devices such as Microsoft’s Surface. As far as mobile devices is concerned, Apple’s iPhone and Sony’s Cybershot would be today’s leading references.
However, touch input on small screens can sometimes be troublesome and lead to typos if one’s fingers happen to hide parts of the user interface. Microsoft, Mitsubishi and the University of Toronto happen to be conducting research on LucidTouch a new technology which allows users to manage graphic interfaces by touching the back of the screen. The technique is called pseudo-transparency. Basically this is a video overlay recreating the shape of your fingers in real time or just showing the equivalent to fingertip cursors. The researchers’ thinking is that when interacting with the back side of the display you should still be able to see the entire screen.
References and picture credits:
- http://on10.net/blogs/tina/Lucid-Touch/
- http://research.microsoft.com/users/baudisch/projects/lucidtouch/
- http://www.patrickbaudisch.com/publications/2007-Wigdor-UIST07-LucidTouch.pdf
| J. de Francisco | |
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| Chicago, IL. 25 June 08 | |
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Innovation and the role of government (3)
“While the U.S. and other OCED nations often started with similar technological capabilities, the U.S. emerged as a technological leader due in large part to multiple government actions that influenced the innovation system (…) Simply put, investing in R&D alone was not a strategy employed, nor a strategy that would have been effective.”
Vicky Norberg-Bohm, ed’s paper, “The Role of Government in Energy Technology Innovation,” Harvard University.
“Not all environments are conducive to innovation (…) the foundations for favorable environments can be provided by national governments and include sound fiscal and monetary policies, solid legal and regulatory structures, effective intellectual property protection, and a commitment to the principles of free markets.”
Merc on “Innovation”.
“The government has accomplished amazing things … but we think that we can do it less expensively (…) One of the main requirements is to have as little government involvement in the project as possible. We believe that space should be open to anyone and everyone, especially those people who want to go.”
Becky Ramsey, the X Prize Foundation’s director of communications for space projects, as quoted in A Pawloski’s article, “Google launches new space race to the moon,” on CNN.
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I selected the above three quotes because they appear to refer to different degrees of government involvement as far as innovation is concerned. In case you wondered, this blog is not aligned with a political party. So, if you were interested in tracking McCain’s and Obama’s views on innovation and technology, then I would suggest having a look at Astra’s comparison table.
Additionally, think tanks such as ITIF and Brookings have recently collaborated on a paper asking for a National Innovation Foundation. Those of you more interested in what’s going on on the other side of the Atlantic might like to go to the E.U.’s site on the European Innovation Policy.
The following is just an inventory of government related actions which would traditionally comprehend basic R&D, applied R&D, as well as market development and complementary policies:
Supply-push initiatives involve investments in R&D, which could be based on factors such as national interest, nurturing long term research and high risk technologies:
- Providing grants, tax incentives and low interest loans for independent innovators
- Funding intramural projects, e.g. national labs and agencies, the military, etc.
- Funding research conducted by public-private partnerships
- Funding research conducted by non-for-profits and universities
- Funding for incubators, industry clusters and venturesome initiatives
- Technology transfer and commercialization policies involving all or any of the above
Market development initiatives would involve policies spurring demand-pull and competitiveness:
- Tax breaks for early adopters of new technologies
- Public campaigns raising awareness and adoption of emerging technologies, e.g. trials, innovation awards
- Regulation as well as deregulation
- Standards as well as lack of thereof
- Intellectual property rights as well as open source
- Anti-trust, product liability and corporate responsibility policies
- Procurement of new technologies by the public administration, civilian agencies and the military
- The development, maintenance and upgrade of physical infrastructure such as transport networks
- Enabling forums for industry collaboration, knowledge sharing and technology transfer
- Statistics and innovation metrics
- Import - export policies and promotion of international trade
Other relevant policies and practices:
- Open public debate and expert consultation
- Continuous improvement of the educational system and professional training
- Facilitating geographical, professional and social mobility
- Immigration, visa policies and brain drain avoidance
I intent to write another couple of posts on this subject as I would like to share other views on the degree to which governments should or should not play a role to foster innovation. In the meantime, I will continue to welcome your emails and comments.
| J. de Francisco | |
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| Chicago, IL. 22 June 08 | |
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SAP’s Co-Innovation Lab
“The Co-Innovation Lab, located on SAP’s Palo Alto campus, is a hands-on working environment for SAP, its customers and integration partners to execute joint projects, and work on proof of concepts, enabling them to discover and promote new business applications and technology solutions. Customers also benefit from reduced integration costs and faster innovation cycles while gaining a new generation of highly agile and adaptable solutions.”
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/coil
“The collaboration workspace from SAP aims to provide Web 2.0 infrastructure such as blogs, wikis and online forums – with built-in governance for all companies to participate and collaborate in real time within a secure business network community.”
“SAP Co-Innovation Lab Offers Multiple Projects” on SDA.
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HP, Intel, Cisco and NetApp have donated products and systems to SAP’s COIL, which is celebrating its first anniversary. SAP’s Walldorf facility in Germany, where the company is headquartered, seems to be the reference model for this newer one in the Silicon Valley. The lab provides services such as: project portfolio management, onsite and remote access to live demos and a training theater.
COIL projects involve ISV, independent software vendors and developers, system integrators as well as equipment vendors. The focus is collaboration around SOA, service oriented architecture, SaaS, software as a service and, potentially, service semantics which happens to be the cornerstone of Web 3.0 concepts.
The following video showcases SAP’s developer challenge, which was held just this past week. Forty-five developers from SAP and customer and partner companies worked together in Palo Alto for five days on topics such as: “Green IT,” “Social Computing for the Enterprise” and “Mobilizing the Enterprise.”
| J. de Francisco | |
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| Naperville, IL. 20 June 08 | |
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Innovation and the role of government (2)
“Many ingredients go into creating a flourishing innovative ecosystem. Bright scientists and engineers are essential. A genuine need for technological solutions helps foster new ideas. Money to fund those projects. And perhaps the most underappreciated but essential ingredient is a marketplace. An innovative ecosystem needs enough consumers with cash to buy, use and critique the precious early gadgets, and to create a lush, deep market when the device becomes widely available.”
Read “Europe Innovates” on Forbes.
“In Europe, which has historically had tougher regulations and more onerous tax structures than in the U.S., entrepreneurs would like to see governments turn a more favorable eye and lighter tax treatment to fledgling private efforts. Governments could also loosen restrictions that make it difficult for universities to collaborate with corporations. Public funding, particularly in Switzerland, tends to favor basic academic research over applied research.”
Read Parmy Olson’s article, “Europe Most Innovative Countries” on Forbes.
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I’m following up on a previous post I wrote earlier in the week on innovation and public policy, which I suggest reading to make sense of the following. The Economist points to the benefits of a “venturesome economy” where innovators and consumers are willing to take risks by selling and buying products and services which involve new technologies. That is meant to be a virtuous circle which would not rely on direct public spending. The Economist’s rationale is that a bureaucracy spending tax payers money by investing in specific industries would not be a cost effective way of promoting innovation, competitiveness and jobs. BusinessWeek’s Bruce Nussbaum makes a case for public policy to address the country’s educational system and infrastructure as part of a national innovation policy.
Governments have traditionally play a role by deploying simultaneous supply-push and demand-pull policies. Public investment in science would be an example of the supply-push model. Demand-pull policies are about new market development enabled by favorable regulatory frameworks fostering entrepreneurship.
I have received some emails asking me to further address this topic. So, I will be sharing more insights in my next posts. In the meantime, I will continue to welcome your comments and feedback.
| J. de Francisco | |
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| Naperville, IL. 19 June 08 | |
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Philips’ InnoHub
“The InnoHub aims to create an environment in which breakthrough innovations can occur in an open innovation setting. At the InnoHub, end-users, product developers, and various business partners come together to actively develop new ideas for products and services in an inspiring, real-life setting.”
“The concept is combining three aspects: a physical environment designed to inspire breakthrough ideas, innovation methodology and the knowledge of the stakeholders involved in the process.”
http://www.vtt.fi/liitetiedostot/uutiset/FactSheetPhilipsInnoHub15062008.pdf
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Later this year Philips and VTT will launch a new InnoHub in Finland which is aimed to deliver a physical environment facilitating research on new product concepts, usability testing and technology demonstrations.
This lab will also work with partners and universities on projects ranging from ideation to product design by involving experts in cross-functional teams. This kind of consulting and research services can be subcontracted by external companies.
InnoHub allows for recreating different environments such as a full-sized apartment, a fashion store and a hospital ward as seen in the below pictures. These rooms deliver a test-bed enabling researchers to study users’ experiences in advance to conducting more costly field trials.
Usability testing often involves specific use cases (tasks) and a cross-section of target users to determine whether a product meets its purpose in the context it was designed for. Innovation springs from trial & error coupled with a continuous improvement mindset. This means iterating designs (i.e. from mockups to final products) drawing from test results, the observation and understanding of specific behaviors as well as users’ feedback. Designers also get a first hand experience by undertaking these tests themselves. But it should be noted that their intimate knowledge of the product makes them expert power users whose experiences could be very different from those of end users.
If interested in how Philips addresses innovation I would suggest reading “Foresight by Design“. Other company’s practices can be found on this blog’s innovation recipes page.
Picture credits: Philips.
| J. de Francisco | |
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| Naperville, IL. 18 June 08 | |
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New book: "Tuned In"
“We had independent research telling us that market-driven companies were 31% more profitable, spent twice as much on research as they did on development, and had 20% higher customer satisfaction rates.”
“Tuned in companies know exactly who they are—they’ve discovered what their market values most and they operate in a world of clarity. They spend time on things that really matter and ignore those that don’t. Surprisingly, tuned in companies spend very little time worrying about competition.”
Read the interview with C. Stull, P. Myers and D. Meerman Scott, the authors of Tuned In.
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This book will be released later this month. In the meantime, you can visit the author’s blog. As far as I can tell, the author’s talk about a 6 step process for business success, which I think translates into marketing fundamentals such as crafting a robust value proposition around a current customer problem and executing on the basis of delivering a superior experience. This is how I would portray that:
Value proposition:
- Identify and focus on unsolved pressing problems.
- Articulate and quantify the incremental benefit.
- Assess the value to your customer and the willingness to spend and pay.
- Articulate memorable concepts that motivate buyers to take action.
Customer focus:
- Communicate in a language and medium your customers can easily understand and relate to.
- Create and support quality experiences as a source of competitive advantage.
- Understand the purchasing process, buyer personas and change agents.
| J. de Francisco | |
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| Naperville, IL. 17 June 08 | |
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Innovation and the role of government
“The best thing a government can do is to ensure that the creative juices of its residents and its companies are allowed to flow as freely as possible. In America’s case that means, for example, rethinking the stiff restrictions placed on work visas following the 2001 terrorist attacks, which have driven away foreign talent and probably stimulated the growth of those R&D centers abroad. It also means overhauling the educational system from the bottom up, so that American schoolchildren have access to the best possible science and engineering education.”
Read “Can America keep its innovative edge?” by The Economist.
“The Internet itself comes out of US military spending by ARPA on a secure system of communication with American universities. Public education (a key item on my list) is by nature tax-payer paid. Highways are paid for by the public, as are most utilities and my suggestion that the US needs a super-fast broad band network falls into a long tradition of government support for basic transportation (canals, ports) and utilities (electricity, dams).
Read Bruce Nussbaum’s article, “The Economist Doesn’t Understand Innovation“, on BusinessWeek.
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At the time of writing this I have not been able to access Nussbaum’s post to read his recommendations to foster a national innovation policy. The site appears to be temporarily unavailable. In any case, the incoming U.S. presidential election is revitalizing the debate on innovation and the need to figure out the role of government moving forward. The above quotes point to some of the discrepancies.
Think tanks and a variety of organizations are actively hosting events and conferences meant to rise public awareness and to influence policy making:
- The Council on Competitiveness is asking the candidates to be more forthcoming on energy matters while fostering one of the organization’s initiatives known as ESIS, Energy Security, Innovation and Sustainability.
- MAP,the Media Access Project just hosted an Innovation ‘08 forum on “Open Access and the New Net Neutrality”.
- Astra, an organization advocating increased federal spending on sciences and engineering has posted a side by side comparison table outlining John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s campaigns.
- AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, is keeping a list of organizations and projects linked to the 2008 presidential election.
| J. de Francisco | |
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| Naperville, IL. 16 June 08 | |
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The 2008 Global Venture Capital Survey
“The 2008 Global Venture Capital Survey, which was conducted in March 2008 and measured the
opinions of nearly 400 venture capitalists worldwide, found European countries are emerging as leaders
in life sciences and clean technology, two of the fastest growing sectors globally. Asian countries were
recognized as offering a high level of innovation in the information technology fields (…) The U.S. maintains the top spot as the global technology leader in innovation.”
http://www.nvca.org/pdf/PressRelease2008final.pdf
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The following comments are based on the above press release pending from receiving the complete report. The main insight coming out of this document appears to be that various countries are becoming innovation leaders in very specific research and development areas. They happen to be backed by government grants, tax exemptions and policies attracting local and foreign investors.
For instance, Germany is named as a leader in clean and alternative energy technologies, solar photovoltaic products being one example. Speaking of which, Mettaefficient reported that Spain, a much sunnier country, broke a new record just a few months ago when wind power accounted for over 40% of all electricity consumed during a given weekend. This fact makes me wonder about why this country was not mentioned in the report. Before I make my next point, I would suggest having a quick look a a previous post under the title The Internet is so passé.
As far as the world of telecommunications is concerned, I would agree with on the relevance of the U.S., Japan and Israel. But I am under the impression the report might be focusing on wireline (or fixed) infrastructure and applications. Some European countries would have to be added to the list should we consider the mobile market.
| J. de Francisco | |
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| Naperville, IL. 5 June 08 | |
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