Open Innovation and in re Bilski

In my earlier career as an engineer, I encountered the patent process.  I’ll admit I wasn’t impressed.  I recall a meeting in 1989 where I described the invention (a software method for detecting the speed of wheels for anti-lock brake purposes) to a lawyer from GM’s patent office.  He claimed he was an engineer, too, but he certainly spoke a different language than I did.  He wrote up the patent application and asked me to read it.  I tried but couldn’t understand it.  I still can’t.  But the invention worked, I got a plaque and a hefty financial reward for it.

 

Temporary Employees: Good or Bad for Innovation

The December jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics repored the first drop in the unemployment rate since the beginning of the recession, from 10.2% to 10.0%.  As might be expected, economists the world over poured over the details of the report to see if is the start of a positive trends that will lead to higher employment levels and an accelerated economy.

 

A sea change in pharmaceutical industry’s attitude towards innovation?

The CEO of Sanofi-Aventis recently laid out a new plan for encouraging innovation within his company that differs drastically from the one that formerly existed there, and which differs from the typical model employed in most pharmaceutical companies.  The question is, will it stick?

 

The Role of Innovation Scouts as Reverse Mentors

I’ve had the good fortune of serving on the Board of Trustees for Millsaps College for the past nine years.  Like most such  boards, its members are mostly older business executives who have given their time, talent, and treasure to the college.  And, of course, have a high-likelihood to provide for the college in their wills.  (Which lead one long-time member to comment that when he was young, he strolled around board meetings checking the health of elderly members but, now that he has had by-pass surgery, he strolls around wondering who is looking at him!)

At one particular board meeting, a sophomore Co-Ed detailed a special study abroad program in which she participated.  Rather than spend a semester at a particular foreign college, students board a modified cruise ship and spend a semester traveling between ports in Asia while attending classes on-board.   Sounded really cool; but of interest to the Board (and hopefully to my readers) was her recount of her social schedule during the trip.  Before boarding, she already had defined her friends, outlined their tourist schedule at each port, and become reasonably acquainted with other students (from other universities that they didn’t know) enough to define a solid social circle for the experience.

The study abroad program didn’t organize this socialization.  The students did it organically.  All through Facebook.

 

What’s so great about Innovation Scouting?

Innovation Scouting seems to be a hot topic these days but I’m not sure why.

Last week Nerac hosted a roundtable event on Innovation Scouting at the Executive Conference Center at Babson College. The idea was to invite Nerac clients to come to an open forum to learn about current practices in innovation scouting and discuss how companies are dealing with their challenges. We were thrilled when we had more registrants than we had chairs to hold them (only to be deflated by nasty New England weather that kept some folks home), but I’m still not sure what motivated these clients to attend.

 

Book Review: The Rudolph Factor

After reading The Rudolph Factor I was struck by the essential importance of people based methods. Every aspect of business can be boiled down to three elements; Process, Product and People. And the third element can be leveraged to generate significant innovation.  The authors identify a myriad of processes that generate excellent efficiency at the expense of the innovative (Rudolph) employees. These practices drive those employees to silence and they become disconnected.  And the ultimate target is not achieved: your employees becoming emotionally committed to your company’s success. If your company has not experienced a ‘cultural revolution’ you have not driven this transformational process forward adequately.

 

Adjacency Guides – what you should know

In a previous Tin Whiskers post, I briefly introduced the concept of an adjacency guide.  This post is an expansion of that concept. 

In previous professional life, I sold software to many different industries.  I recall attending two executive offsite events that, on the surface, seemed similar.  But, in reality, were quite different.

 

Innovation Scouting through Adjacencies

When companies look to accelerate growth beyond that which seems achievable in their core markets, they often look to approach adjacencies. So, naturally, companies scouting for new technologies tend to look in adjacent areas as well. But they often get frustrated with the lack of substantive results. But other companies seem to do really well at adjacency exploration and the difference in their results is apparent if you understand the difference in approach.

 

Forbes: The Myth of Crowdsourcing

In this online Forbes Article, The Myth of Crowdsourcing, contributor Dan Woods laments industry’s dominant understanding of the term “crowdsourcing.”

His main point is that crowds rarely innovate; virtually all examples (Wikipedia, Linux, etc) are dominated by major inventors/contributors. 

 

Best Practices Ranking of Open Innovation Web Sites

Many companies have created web sites to solicit innovation partners and ideas.  Often this online approach to idea generation is a primary feed for the corporations Innovation Scouts so it is vital to them that it be successful.  I figured it might be time to canvass them for best practices, but the undertaking surely proved challenging.  Primarily, the challenge comes from each company making fundamental assumptions about what their web site is to accomplish and then building functions and features aimed at the goal.  Comparing feature to feature quickly proved useless.

So, rather than compare features, we decided to put ourselves into the shoes of the innovator and see what they might think about each site.  That proved much more enlightening.