Посты с тэгом: collaboration

Launchpad Opens Doors for Great Consumer Product Ideas

Published date: August 26, 2013 в 3:00 am

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Launchpad (www.launchrightnow.com), a product design, development, and collaborative resource hub, wants your ideas.  Founded in January 2013 as a fresh player in the consumer product development industry, Launchpad partners with people whose ideas – from kitchen gadgets to software apps – need help to move along.

“We’re living in a thrilling era of entrepreneurialism, one lit bulbbut even those great ideas that have capital backing don’t have resources like product design, legal support, office space, patent protection or marketing guidance to grow their idea from hatchling to swan. We do, and this is why Launchpad is an essential partner for inventors and startups,” says Launchpad CEO, Ian Boccaccio.

Unlike a venture capital firm that provides only cash resources in exchange for a stake in the startup company, Launchpad brings together years of success and expertise across an array of backgrounds including engineering, software development, capital markets, finance, tax, law, business, media, and logistics which allows them to shepherd a good idea through the entire development process, and take it to market.

“Basically, if you have a good idea, we’ll figure out how to make it, scale it, and sell it,” says Ian Boccaccio; “Venture capital firms invest cash for an equity stake in the potential enterprise, but cash will not buy a sound business plan, nor the guidance or appropriate resources to execute on it.   Launchpad engages throughout the endeavor, from prototype to IPO, shepherding entrepreneurs through a process that only experience can bring.   Launchpad supplies its clients with not only this invaluable experience, but the resources to act effectively on this experience.”
Ryan Zdanis, Executive Vice President and Partner at Launchpad  believes a partnership model in which Launchpad provides ongoing business resources to organizations results in a win/win situation resulting in no out-of-pocket expense for the client. This arrangement incentivizes both parties to grow the business collectively toward the same goal.
“It’s a true partnership. In comparison to an accelerator charging up-front fees or for services or investing cash like a VC, the Launchpad model fosters collaboration for maximum effectiveness and ultimate success,” says Ryan Zdanis.
A key figure on the Launchpad team is Michael Newman, a design and development engineer with multi-industry experience.  Michael Newman brings prototyping, development, and manufacturing knowledge from industries ranging from consumer audio to automotive, and has experience in creating specialized designs utilizing many prototyping methods especially with 3D printers.
“Design is critical. Through this process you will understand a lot about how your product could fail, or even where small modifications can reduce cost, increase reliability and overall, improve the product,” says Michael Newman.
Currently, Launchpad is reviewing the numerous ideas that have already begun to flood the organization, with the intent to bring select entrepreneurs onto the Launchpad platform.
“Our model really resonates with people. Already we have started to gain industry recognition, and have attracted a significant pipeline of prospective partners of all sizes, from start-up mode to multimillion dollar companies,” says Ryan Zdanis.
Launchpad also welcomes individual idea submissions.
“Our mission is to help turn your idea into a business model where there is profit opportunity for both of us.   Calling all entrepreneurs: we want anyone with a great idea for a useful product to visit our website,” says Ryan Zdanis.
Anyone who submits an idea is protected by Launchpad’s Non-Disclosure Agreement which states that all ideas are treated as confidential, and will not be shared outside of the firm, or used for Launchpad’s own gain.
“No one in the marketplace does what we do. No other firm provides the wealth of resources that Launchpad can provide, or will accelerate your progress quicker than we will,” says Ryan Zdanis.

Innovate to Collaborate

Published date: July 26, 2009 в 5:59 pm

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People collaborate to innovate. But what about the other way around?  Could a structured innovation approach be used to bring people closer together?  In other words, collaboration becomes the endpoint and innovation becomes the means to that end?

Collaboration is where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals. Collaboration is seen as an essential element of change and group effectiveness.  People collaborate for a variety of reasons, including:

Social Innovation

Published date: June 7, 2008 в 11:05 am

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Web 2.0 social tools are swelling all around us, and the Fortune 100 are embracing them for two purposes – managing and engaging the internal employee base and managing and engaging the external customer base.  Wikis, blogs, mashups, and social networks will improve productivity, connectivity, knowledge transfer, and ultimately profitability if deployed correctly.
What about innovation?  Can the Web 2.0 environment increase, enable, accelerate, and deepen innovation within companies?  I am impressed with the emergence of tools such as Wridea and others that have taken on the challenge.  But I have yet to see one that works effectively.  I am trying to figure out why.  Are these applications using the wrong innovation tool or process?  Do they have an effective innovation process, but deploy it incorrectly?  Or, are people not using the application in an optimal way?
I experimented with online innovation about five years ago, about the time MySpace was introduced.  I used an online learning platform (eCollege 4.0) with a group of colleagues, and we tried to create new products within the health care space.  We used Systematic Inventive Thinking as the innovation process, and we structured the “event” over a four week period of time.  The goal was to invent new products without ever meeting face-to-face using asynchronous communications online.  I called it O.P.I.E for short – Online Product Innovation Exchange.
Here is how it worked.  Using simple threaded postings, a member of the group suggested an existing product as a starting point.  Another member took that product and listed the components of it.  Then, each member would select one of the components to work on.  Their job was to use one of the five templates of the S.I.T. method and create a virtual product.  They had to post these virtual products in a separate area of the online site.  Then, other members would review their suggested virtual products and use “Function Follows Form” to envision a viable use or benefit of the virtual product.  It was classic S.I.T. in an online, asynchronous environment.  The result?
O.P.I.E. was a miserable failure.  It generated few ideas, nothing really original, and it was frustrating for the participants.  I struggled with why for a long time.  Was it the wrong process, people, or platform?  As I have learned more about social media and Web 2.0 and how people really use and experience this environment, I am beginning to understand why.  All three aspects of O.P.I.E. – the process, people, and platform – needed some modification for this to work effectively.  Here is what I would do differently.
For social innovation to work, the platform has to be optimized for this purpose.  I had used a platform that was intended for traditional online learning, and it lacked the tools to properly facilitate the exchange and touchpoints needed for innovation.  The optimal platform needs to do a few things better.  For example, the site needs to notify other members when a virtual product has been posted.  With O.P.I.E., too much time elapsed in the asynchronous mode, and members were not sure when to login to check what was going on.  Other members would get frustrated because nothing seemed to be happening.  If members were notified, Twitter-like, that a new virtual product was available, they could engage the process more efficiently and all at once to create a flurry of ideas for discussion.  Secondly, the site needs to allow richer descriptions of virtual products.  This could be done either visually where participants somehow draw the virtual product, or audibly where participants leave a short, recorded description on the site for others to hear, either online or via their cell phone.  This would promote a richer response in the form of innovative uses and benefits of the virtual product.
What about the process and people?  I am still working on this, but I believe changes are needed in both.  The inherent flow of innovation is correct within the S.I.T. method, but I wonder if there are perhaps certain templates that are better suited for the online environment.  Also, there needs to be more work done in how the process is facilitated online and how expectations are set for the participants.  What components do they work on?  What virtual products do they respond to? How many ideas do they generate?  How many other ideas do they attempt to modify or improve?
Social innovation is promising.  It will reduce the cost of innovation and the time commitment allowing companies to innovate more often.  But the big win is the same as what many other Web 2.0 applications bring – it will greatly expand the numbers and diversity of participants.  This will yield more original ideas and innovations than ever before.

Innovation Diagnostic

Published date: May 4, 2008 в 11:37 am

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Professor Keith Sawyer makes a useful connection between innovation and learning when he writes, “What both innovation and learning have in common is adaptability and improvisationality.”  He connects this idea with authors Joaquín Alegre and Ricardo Chiva from the Sloan Management Review.  They identified five core features of high organizational learning capability (OLC) companies: experimentation, risk taking, interaction with the external environment, dialogue, and participative decision making.  Keith has found that these five characteristics also hold true of organizations that use the power of collaboration to generate innovation.  He believes that organizations high in learning ability are more likely to be innovative organizations.
I am inclined to agree.  The reality though for many organizations is that they may be missing one or more of these characteristics.  Yet they still must innovate to grow.  What would be truly useful is a rigorous innovation diagnostic based on these five characteristics.  This diagnostic could help a company identify where it is weak and where it needs to focus attention and resources.  Here is how it might work.
Experimentation:  The authors define this as the degree to which new ideas and suggestions are dealt with sympathetically by the organization.  Measure this in several ways: the budget dollars spent on designing and running experiements, the amount of new ideas generated, and the percentage of those ideas that challenge the established order as described by Alegre and Chiva.  My observation is that organizations see the value of experimenting more during the hard times than the good times.  Therefore, measuring this characteristic over time would be most useful.
Risk Taking:  Measure employees in terms of their tolerance for ambiguity using established testing methods.  Measure organizational risk-taking in terms of the internal rate of return of projects initiated and rejected.  My observation is that organizations take too little risk not because they cannot bear it from a portfolio point-of-view, but rather from an individual career risk point-of-view.  People, not organizations, are afraid to fail.  They play “not to lose.”
Interaction with the External Environment:  The authors define this as the scope of relationships with factors that are beyond the direct control or influence of the organization and include competitors, the economic system, the social system, the monetary system and the political/legal system.  Measure this by the amount of money spent on direct contact with these entities.  Also measure the resources spent to collect information about them.  What is the net aggregage spend on issues external to the firm?  My observation is that firms tend to be very good at observing and monitoring the external world, but few are excellent at interacting with it.  That is the key to leveraging it for innovation.
Dialogue:  Dialogue is a way of spreading information and skills throughout an organization, and it helps create multiple viewpoints.  Measure both the speed, volume, and fidelity of information as it spreads through the firm.  Do this by taking a new issue as it emerges and systematically studying its diffusion.  Identify the information pathways, both formal and informal.  My observation is that firms are improving here.  They see the value in teaching employees how to 1. establish their internal network, then 2. use systematic persuasion principles to influence and change the firm.
Participative Decision Making:  This refers to the level of influence employees have in the decision- making process.  Measure employee satisfaction, motivation, and degree to which they feel involved and engaged.  The Q12 Assessment might be an effective measurement tool in this area.  My observation is that firms have gotten pretty good at this because it correlates to other success factors, not just innovation.
Alegre and Chiva note that these five characteristics combine to create an excellent snapshot of an organization’s OLC. They suggest that an organization can use surveys and other internal metrics as a way of measuring its ability to learn and innovate. If an organization measures an improvement in its learning capability, it will very likely see a concurrent increase in innovation.

Divide and Conquer

Published date: February 24, 2008 в 10:46 am

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“Divide and Conquer” is:  a. classic military strategy, b. a computer algorithm design paradigm, c. a collaborative problem solving approach, d. an innovation tool, or e. ALL THE ABOVE
The answer, of course, is all the above.  Division is one of the five templates of innovation in the Systematic Inventive Thinking method.  The others are Subtraction, Task Unification, Multiplication, and Attribute Dependency.  Templates were developed by recognizing the same consistent pattern over many products so that the pattern could be applied to create innovative new products.  The method works by taking a product, concept, situation, service, process, or other seed construct, and breaking it into its basic component parts or attributes. The templates manipulate the components, one at a time, to create new-to-the-world constructs for which the innovator finds a valuable use. The notion of taking the solution and finding a problem that it can solve is called “function follows form” and is at the heart of the systematic inventive thinking process.  It is innovation by working backwards.
The Division Template works by taking a product or a component of it and dividing it physically, functionally, or what is called preserving where each part preserves the characteristics of the whole.  Rearrange the parts, then work backwards to find a use or benefit for this new form.
Here is an example from my workshop last week at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.  The product is dryer sheets (gauze-like tissues about the size of a Kleenex, put into clothes dryers to eliminate static cling, soften clothes and add artificial fragrance.)  Now divide these into much smaller parts, perhaps after the whole sheet is thrown into the dryer.  Imagine these smaller parts get all over the clothes and cling to them.  Why would this be useful?  What could be the benefit?  Here’s an idea.  Perhaps the smaller pieces stay on the clothes to continue softening, brightening, or adding a design element, waterproofing, smell-proofing, allergy free, anti-itch, etc.  Perhaps the clothes are pre-treated with something that interacts with the small dryer pieces to extend the performance of the clothes, reducing cleaning, wear and tear, or wrinkles.  Perhaps the small bits are transparent (thanks, Yoni!) so they are invisible on the clothing.  This simple Division takes a seemingly dull product and re-frames how we think of it to discover new innovative uses and benefits.
Division is also a collaboration approach.  One of the Duke MBA’s, Tom Powell, emailed me about crowdspirit.com, kluster.com, and ideabahn.com.  These new sites form communities that take an idea and iteratively improve it with suggestions from members.  These sites are also examples of Division (preserving) – taking the larger problem and dividing it among many people.  Idea collaboration is an old idea, but what could be a more innovative approach is to divide a problem using the other two methods: physically or functionally…focus members on the problem in a different way.  As these beta sites evolve, we will watch to see how innovative they can become at dividing and conquering.

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