Посты с тэгом: innovation

Academic Focus: Harvard Business School

Published date: October 12, 2009 в 9:29 am

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A colleague asked me, “Who is that innovation guru at the Harvard Business School?”

That’s easy:  Dr. Teresa Amabile. 

Dr. Amabile heads the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School and is the only tenured professor at a top school to devote her entire research program to the study of creativity.  She is one of the world’s leading voices in business innovation.  From Wikipedia:

“Originally educated and employed as a chemist, Dr. Amabile received her Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1977. Originally focusing on individual creativity, Dr. Amabile’s research has expanded to encompass team creativity and organizational innovation. This 30-year program of research on how the work environment can influence creativity and motivation has yielded a theory of creativity and innovation; methods for assessing creativity, motivation, and the work environment; and a set of prescriptions for maintaining and stimulating innovation. Her current research program focuses on the psychology of everyday work life: how events in the work environment influence subjective experience and performance. Before joining HBS, Dr. Amabile held several research grants as a professor at Brandeis University, including Creativity and Motivation, from the National Institute of Mental Health, and Downsizing Industrial R&D, from the Center for Innovation Management Studies. She was awarded the E. Paul Torrance Award by the Creativity Division of the National Association for Gifted Children in 1998.

Dr. Amabile has presented her theories, research results, and practical implications to various groups in business, government, and education, including Lucent Technologies, Procter & Gamble, Novartis International AG, and Motorola. In addition to participating in various executive programs, her main teaching assignment at Harvard Business School is an MBA course, Managing for Creativity. Dr. Amabile was the host/instructor of Against All Odds: Inside Statistics, a 26-part instructional series originally produced for broadcast on PBS. She currently serves as a Director of Seaman Corporation.

Dr. Amabile is the author of Creativity in Context and Growing Up Creative, as well as over 100 scholarly papers, chapters, and presentations. She serves on the editorial boards of Creativity Research Journal, Creativity and Innovation Management, and Journal of Creative Behavior.”

TAmabile For innovation practitioners, I recommend reading her articles:

  • Amabile, Teresa M., and Mukti Khaire. “Creativity and the Role of the Leader.” Harvard Business Review 86, no. 10 (October 2008)
  • Amabile, T. M. “Entrepreneurial Creativity Through Motivational Synergy.” Journal of Creative Behavior 31 (1997): 18-26.
  • Amabile, T. M. “Attributions of Creativity: What Are the Consequences?” Creativity Research Journal 8, no. 4 (1995): 423-426.

Teresa Amabile has been shaking up the world of creativity and innovation for over 30 years.  Now THAT’s disruptive!

The Livescribe Pulse Smart Pen – Never Miss an Idea

Published date: August 30, 2009 в 6:03 pm

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Innovating is mental, visual, and vocal.  Here is a new product to help capture…and coordinate…all three.  It is called the PulseTM by Livescribe.  The PulseTM is a smart pen that records and links audio to what your write, so you never miss a word…or an idea.

The PulseTM will become a great tool for conducting innovation workshops.  One of the more challenging issues in workshops is capturing ideas.  No matter how diligent the team is in collecting ideas, many subtle insights and concepts are missed.  Even if an innovation workshop is recorded on audio or video tape, it is nearly impossible to connect the spoken word to the drawings and notes taken by the participants.  The PulseTM SmartPen solves that.Here is how I will use the PulseTM in my workshops:
  •  Recording component lists
  • Recording Virtual Products
  • Recording “Function Follows Form” ideas
  • Drawing new product embodiments
  • Recording potential benefits of new ideas
  • Recording potential challenges and drawbacks of ideas
  • Scoring ideas
  • Creating Attribute Dependency matrices
  • Recording initial business cases to support new ideas
  • Recording names of participants and facilitators
I envision using the pen with teams of two or three people as they use a structured innovation method.  One team member will use the pen to keep track of ideas and draw physical representations while recording the actual discussion as it happens.  Each team member will sign the page while verbalizing their name.  Idea sessions upload automatically to a computer when the pen is attached to its charging cradle.  This approach captures the moment of innovation in audio and written form…forever.  It creates a permanent record of who innovated, how they innovated, and what they innovated.  We’ll never miss an idea again.
Potential benefits of this approach include:DSC00412
  • Better records and annotations for filing patents and protecting intellectual property
  • Better archiving for future workshops to refine and improve ideas
  • Better metrics of ideation programs
  • Easier sharing of ideas with R&D teams, consultants, and agencies
  • Better marketing strategy development

Congratulations to the team at Livescribe for the development and launch of this useful product.  For innovation practitioners, this is a must-have.

Automated Innovation

Published date: August 4, 2009 в 7:40 am

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“To avoid the fate of alchemists, it is time we asked where we stand.  Now, before we invest more time and money on the information-processing level, we should ask whether the protocols of human subjects and the programs so far produced suggest that computer language is appropriate for analyzing human behavior:  Is an exhaustive analysis of human reason into rule-governed operations on discrete, determinate, context-free elements possible?  Is an approximation to this goal of artificial reason even probable?  The answer to both these questions appears to be, No.”

Hubert L. Dreyfus
“What Computers Can’t Do:  The Limits of Artificial Intelligence”

This chilling conclusion about the fate of artificial intelligence seems to put an end to the idea that we can automate innovation.  Since this book was first published in 1972, not much has changed, and the  field of artificial intelligence seems to be in decline.

For a machine to innovate, it would need to:

Hopeful Innovation

Published date: June 14, 2009 в 4:33 pm

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Are hopeful employees more innovative?  A new study by Armenio Rego and his colleagues shows how employees’ sense of hope explains their creative output at work.  They asked one hundred and twenty five employees to rate their personal sense of hope and happiness while their supervisors rated the employees’ creativity.  Based on the correlations, they conclude that hope predicts creativity.

Hope is defined as a positive motivational belief in one’s future; the feeling that what is wanted can be had;  that events will turn out for the best.  Hoping is an integral part of being human.  Without hope, tasks such as innovating become difficult if not impossible.  Why bother if there is no hope for a successful future?  “Hope is important for innovation at work because creativity requires challenging the status quo and a willingness to try and possibly fail.  It requires some level of internal, sustaining force that pushes individuals to persevere in the face of challenges inherent to creative work.” 

I have observed this in practice.  I once facilitated employees in a division about to be sold to another company.  The employees learned about the divestiture during the workshop.  Morale was low, and participants were not responsive to systematic innovation techniques.  They lacked hope…hope about their future employment and personal achievement.  To salvage the workshop, we re-framed it.  We told the employees they needed to innovate so that they would be perceived as valuable to their new owners.  Innovating would give them an immediate jump-start on becoming competitive in the marketplace, something they struggled with under the current owner.  Once hopeful, they kicked innovation into high gear.  That workshop was one of the most successful and creative I have ever experienced.

What can leaders do to inspire hope?  Darren Webb has outlined a useful model in his paper, “Modes of Hoping.”  He identifies five types of hope:

The LAB: Innovating a Credit Card with S.I.T. (June 2009)

Published date: June 7, 2009 в 12:30 pm

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Credit card companies must innovate to overcome the financial and public relations consequences of recent government legislation.  The Credit Card Reform Act of 2009 is a “bill to protect consumers, and especially young consumers, from skyrocketing credit card debt, unfair credit card practices, and deceptive credit offers.”   These changes go into effect in 2010, and they will undoubtedly reduce the financial performance of card issuers.

The concept of using a card for purchases was described in 1887 by Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel Looking Backward.  Bellamy used the term credit card eleven times in this novel.  The credit card has become a ubiquitous symbol of consumerism since then.  Many credit card innovations have emerged, some useful and others wacky.  Recent innovations include: paperless statement; online statements; custom logos to display your affiliations with colleges, companies, and other groups;  a magnetic strip to read information more efficiently and securely.

The key for credit card companies is to reduce their reliance on price (in the form of interest rates, penalties, and fees) and increase their pipeline of innovative services for which consumers will be willing to pay.  That is the focus of this month’s LAB.

Design the Future of Mobile Communications

Published date: April 21, 2009 в 10:05 pm

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It’s time to put innovation into practice.

LG Mobile Phones, the fastest growing mobile phone brand in North America, is partnering with crowdSPRING, an online marketplace for creative services, to announce a new competition to define the future of personal mobile communication.  U.S. residents age 18 and over can have a chance to design their vision of the next revolutionary LG mobile phone and compete for more than $80,000 in awards.  See http://www.crowdspring.com/LG for details on how to submit your ideas.

Here is how submissions will be judged:

How to Innovate!

Published date: April 17, 2009 в 2:55 pm

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This step-by-step method helps you invent new products or services using templates. Templates channel your creative thinking so you can innovate in a completely new way. It is not brainstorming. It is a structured process to focus your creative output.

The way it works is by creating a hypothetical solution first, and then imagining a problem that it solves.  This is exactly opposite of the traditional way people invent.  Usually, we start with a problem, then we try to invent solutions to it.  That is not always effective because many times we do not know all the problems consumers have when using a product or service.  When reverse the direction (SOLUTION-TO-PROBLEM), we uncover many new useful problems worth solving, and we have an innovative solution to apply to it.   It’s cool!  And it works!

Follow these steps:

1.  Select a product or service to innovate.

2.  Create a list of its components.

3.  Apply a TEMPLATE to each component.  This creates a VIRTUAL PRODUCT.  It is virtual because it does not exist.  It should not seem to make any sense to you at first.  That is okay…that is how the method works.

4.  Take the VIRTUAL PRODUCT and think of all the ways it could be useful.  What problems does it solve?  What benefits does it offer?  Who would use it?

5.  Repeat the process using a different component.

6.  Repeat the entire process using a different TEMPLATE.

Here are the TEMPLATES:

  • SUBTRACTION:  removing an essential component and keeping only what is left
  • MULTIPLICATION:  making a copy of a component but changing it in some way
  • DIVISION:  dividing a component out of the product and putting it back somewhere else, OR taking the component and physically dividing it
  • TASK UNIFICATION:  assigning an additional task to an existing component – giving it a new job in addition to its existing job

Lg-mobile-VX11000-lean-large EXAMPLE:  The Cell Phone

List the components:

  1. Earpiece (making sound)
  2. Microphone (picking up sound)
  3. Keyboard
  4. On/Off Switch
  5. Battery
  6. Volume Control
  7. Antenna
  8. SMS texting
  9. Address Book
  10. Menu
  11. Voice mail
  12. Casing
  13. Display Screen
  14. Camera
  15. Carrying Clip

Apply a TEMPLATE:  (example)

  • SUBTRACTION:  Imagine a cell phone without the earpiece (so the cell phone cannot make any sound).  This is our VIRTUAL PRODUCT.  Now imagine what it would be good for.  Ask yourself these questions:
    • Who would use a cell phone that did not have sound? 
    • What usage situations or social situations would this be particularly useful for? 
    • What would be the benefit? 
    •  How would it work?

THE IDEA:  It is a new kind of cell phone that is only for SMS texting and Twittering.  It has a different rate plan than regular cell phones.  It has a keyboard that is optimized for fast inputing.  It has an excellent address book and screen display so that you can send texts and tweets very fast.  The screen is large so you can share it with other people.

  • Now repeat this process for each component and each TEMPLATE.  Keep good notes of your new ideas.  Combine ideas together to create completely new-to-the-world concepts for a cell phone!

Want more examples?  Visit The LAB.

The LAB: Innovating a Computer Keyboard with Attribute Dependency (April 2009)

Published date: April 13, 2009 в 12:46 pm

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Zachary Campau is an MBA candidate at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan who I met last week while lecturing there.  He was intrigued by Systematic Inventive Thinking, and he emailed me with a proposition.  He noted that I preach a lot about the value of team innovation, but I don’t practice what I preach.  He noticed in my LAB series that I innovate alone, thus not taking advantage of the power of collaboration.  He was right.  So I accepted his offer to join me in my next LAB posting…this one.

We decided to innovate a computer keyboard using the Attribute Dependency tool.  But there is more to the story.  We did this all via phone while he was in Ann Arbor and I was in Naples, Florida on holiday.  In fact, I decided to multi-task by both innovating with Zach while doing one of my favorite pastimes: fishing.  My ultimate dream was to create a BIG innovation while simultaneously catching a BIG fish.  Of course, luck would determine the ultimate outcome.  The big innovation was something I could count on happening.  Fish, on the other hand, tend to be less cooperative.

Innovation at the U.S. Automakers

Published date: April 8, 2009 в 7:46 pm

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As some U.S. automakers face inevitable restructuring, the key questions are what should they become?  What is the best way to do it?  The answer depends on what battle they think they are fighting.  In simplest terms:  should they build better cars?  Build cars better?  Build cars?

Consider the battles U.S. automakers have fought against the Japanese and other automakers.  How has Detroit done in:  design?  quality? productivity? brand building?  Given the steady loss of market share and margin, they seem to be losing.  There are a variety of reasons, some of their own making and some not.

There is one battle worth winning more than the others – the battle of ideas.  U.S. automakers need to outperform the competition in one definitive way – systematically develop and deploy a steady, uninterrupted stream of novel ideas and inventions across all aspects of their business.  At the risk of falling deep into the “easier-said-than-done” category, I offer my blueprint for change for U.S. automakers: reframe, retrain, and redeploy…a model based on my own experience.

Innovation Adjacencies

Published date: March 18, 2009 в 1:39 pm

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Finding adjacent market spaces is an attractive way to grow.  Adjacent markets are not too far away from your core business in terms of channels, technology, price point, brand, etc.  Adjacent means: lying near, neighboring, having a common border, touchable.  Although chasing adjacencies can be distracting, it is a much easier to sell internally.  Adjacencies seem more achievable than far out, ethereal white space opportunities.

Adjacent markets are even more appealing when you apply a systematic innovation method to it.  Giving yourself the gift of novelty in a new market space right next to your own seems like the best of both worlds.  The trick is finding the right adjacencies.

The starting point for thinking about adjacencies is to ask yourself, “Adjacent to what?”  It is much harder to find adjacent spaces when you don’t have a clear understanding of your existing spaces.  For this, I recommend a framework called The Big Picture developed by Professor Christie Nordhielm at The University of Michigan.  The Big Picture outlines four quadrants that, when properly constructed, completely define any market category.  Here is a visual of those quadrants.

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