Monthly Archive for November, 2009

SIT goes webinar: “Houston, we have an opportunity!”

Join us for a free Inventive Thinking webinar on Tue, Dec 1, 2009 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM EST.

This one-hour, free webinar introduces you to the concept of “cognitive fixedness”, a major barrier to innovative thinking. We’ll delve into one specific type of fixedness and learn how to overcome it using Task Unification, one of SIT’s innovation tools.

Task Unification offers a new way of observing surroundings, identifying resources and using them creatively.

This webinar mixes hands-on practice and fascinating examples from the world of product innovation, MarCom and problem solving.  At the end of this webinar, you’ll find it easier to view challenges as golden opportunities.

The webinar will be conducted by Shlomit Tassa. Shlomit manages SIT Western Europe Operations, which includes some of SIT’s most strategic clients, such as Bayer, Nestlé, Shell, and Unilever. Additionally, she leads SIT’s Sustainability expertise, working with corporate clients that choose to become greener. Shlomit holds masters degrees in Computer Science and Product Design, and before joining SIT, worked in high-tech companies in Israel and in the US, and later as an independent usability consultant.

Register now by clicking here

Once registered you will receive an email confirming your registration with information you need to join the Webinar.

Just How Innovative Are You? Take Our Quick Self-Test

A. How much time each month do you dedicate to innovation?
1. About 5 minutes
2. 1-3 hours
3. 5-10 hours
4. Should I also include sleeping and weekend time?

B. How many innovation books have you read over the last year?
1. They write books on this stuff?
2. 1-3
3. 2-6
4. I lose count

C. How many Innovation companies are you familiar with?
1. Ooh, an innovation company!  What’s that?
2. 1
3. 5
4. All of them

D. How many innovation conferences did you attend over the last 2 years?
1. I’m sure I’ll visit one some time soon…
2. 1
3. 2
4. Attend… or speak at?

Continue reading ‘Just How Innovative Are You? Take Our Quick Self-Test’

SITE SEEING no. 1 | Shanghai Soup

This is the first in a new series of posts in which we will try to share with you the more colorful side of SIT…
As part of what may be called our daily “routine” we find ourselves leading innovation processes with various companies all over the world - from Cincinnati to Melbourne, from Tokyo to Stockholm, and from La Pas to Moscow. These innovation processes are usually very intense, and leave little time for anything other than work. But those of us who like photography take advantage of those few free moments for exercising our hobby. In these posts we want to share with you some of the photographs we took and some of the stories behind them.

The photos in this album have been taken in Shanghai, China, during a week long innovation processes with the local branch of Campbell Soup. One of the most interesting aspects of this project was learning about soup, soup making and soup consumption in China. Of course we had to try some soups (and other dishes) to get a more tangible sense of what we were talking about.

Continue reading ‘SITE SEEING no. 1 | Shanghai Soup’

Lucky Engineering Accidents

Many classic, successful products have been invented “by accident” – by an unintended mishap that just happened to turn out to be a brilliant stroke of R&D genius: Penicillin, the microwave, chocolate chip cookies and more. And the stories behind these incidents are always so fun and surprising that they catch our attention and stick in our minds for good.

Here are just a few of the classics. You have no doubt heard them, or similar versions of them, numerous times.




Ivory Soap

In 1878, in a Procter & Gamble soap production factory, one of the employee’s lunch breaks took longer than expected. The whole thing would have gone unnoticed, if not for a malfunction that got out of hand. Continue reading ‘Lucky Engineering Accidents’