Revelnnovation

__________________________________

Benevolent hacking is the duct tape of the work world.  - the Hacking Work Manifesto

__________________________________

There is a reason I generally like to hang around techie types, and am married to a particular brand of one.  For some, there's a lovely, dry sense of humor, a particular type of irreverence and "fight the system" and "fight working for the man" that enriches and adds proper balance to my anti-corporate (I'm not the Borg*) side. Yet, I do and will continue to choose  to work with and for corporations.  They are filled with lovely human beings that, like all of us I hope, desire to feel fully human and not herded into mechanistic silos and tunnels in order to make their numbers and pay the rent.  They have families, children, dreams.   Hackers provide great insights into this aspect of productivity when the bureaucracy turns sour, does not serve the masses, and just plain gets in the way.

God bless 'em (many agnostics and atheists and alternatives to my mainline religious views, out there, I'm glad to say.)  I'm glad they are out there to make work do-able when the normal ways of doing work just DON'T work.

__________________________________

 That all said, I'm actually one of them. 

__________________________________

Also:  Some of them make enough money that their salaries rival that of bank V.Ps.  There's a certain delight in that.  Especially when seeing their videos and reading their blogs, where they say anything they want.

That all said, I'm actually one of them.  I'm a shallow nerd type.  I love technology & gadgets.  I can do basic html and embed stuff.  I can create social media empire structures.  I can figure stuff out, with a little help from my deep techie friends including smartie pants, socially adept types.  I can see where technology accelerates human capabilities and builds relationships.  More power to we all in building our techie side, with every smart phone and iPad we buy.

--Deb

PS:  The Borg are race of 1/2 robot - 1/2 human hive-oriented creatures from the iconic show, Star Trek.   The Borg are also a symbol in popular culture for any type of juggernaut against which "resistance is futile".  I am a Trekker from way back.  Seen all the movies.  Have opinions of the spin offs.  Love sci fi.  Even love Babylon 5 but not BattleStar Galactica.  Convinced I belong to the club?

Another great post by Hutch Carpenter.
A few excerpts:

The five themes for the definitions are illustrative of the major patterns of thought in innovation. ...Definitions are presented -- [here's a few samples|

Business Model -- This is the sense of innovation in the broader context of companies and markets. Innovation’s meaning here is to alter the landscape.

....My definition of radical innovation: a new product, process, or system that replaces its accepted predecessor and renders it obsolete.

Creativity The internal spring of innovation: creativity. This sense of innovation reflects our personal, individual roles in it.

...Innovation can be a thin line connecting the intuitive, the rational and the market: the gift, the servant and the server.

...Value + Creativity + Execution = Innovation.

Take a look. Read the full post (including quote authors) via business-strategy-innovation.com

Excerpted:

Innovation bringing about the next Michigan

Audio of the "Destination: Innovation" event in Troy, Michigan

• Opening
• Innovation defined
• Innovation defined part 2
• Innovation in action

Related podcasts:

• Soji Adelaja, Director of Michigan State University's Land Policy Institute talks with WWJ's Ron Dewey on the change in culture necessary in order to fix Michigan's economy.
• Jeff DeGraff, Clinical Professor of Business Administration, Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, talks about how Michigan lost its edge. WWJ's Ron Dewey with the interview.
• Judy Johncox, Associate Vice President for Technology Commericialization at Wayne State University talks about what is at the heart of an entrepenuer. WWJ’s Ron Dewey with the interview.
• URC Executive Director Jeff Mason on Destination Innovation
• Terry Cross, executive in residence-entrepreneurship at Wayne State University discusses his program and innovation with WWJ's Beth Fisher.

______________________________________

• Innovation requires a lot of variation - a lot of diversity, lot of touch points, a lot of pushing and shoving in a positive and constructive way…
• The more things are aligned, the more they create efficiencies and standards.
• But they eliminate variation, that is what fuels innovation...

______________________________________

Photos from the event »

TROY, Mich. (WWJ) -- What will it take for Michigan to get its economic groove back? At WWJ's "Destination: Innovation" Business Breakfast in Troy, business and University Research Corridor leaders agreed that entrepreneurialism is the key.

During Thursday's event, WWJ had a chance to hear from some of the top minds in Michigan about how we can bring new business, new technology and jobs to our state.

Judy Johncox helps turn ideas into action at Wayne State University's TechTown. She said the key to being an entrepreneur is to surround yourself with other idea people.

...Jeff Mason is Executive Director of Michigan’s University Research Corridor, which is a collaboration between the state's three largest universities. "We've lost some of that 'mojo', if you will, in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship," Mason said.

"[We had] a hundred years of tinkerers and inventors and builders, and 'can do', and a sense of destiny -- I think that one of the things that happend in the 80's, in the downturn, is things got very conservative here," DeGraff said.

DeGraff says he sees these can-do people coming out of his classrooms. The roblem is, they take their amazing ideas out of Michigan. And DeGraff says that has to change.

...Rich Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations...says...Michigan needs to "move away from an economy of entitlement and move toward an economy of entrepreneurship." Sheridan says, in his business, he loves to see creative conflict arise in the conference room, which, he says, fuels innovative ideas.

Experts to discuss how innovation can jump start Michigan's economy

Credit: Courtesy, iStockphoto

_____________________________________________

“A crucial aspect of this index is the link between innovation measured on this index and current and future financial performance,” -- Gerard Tellis, professor and director of the Marshall Center for Global Innovation at USC.

_____________________________________________

A new index suggests that innovation is a valid measure of portfolio formation just like size, value, growth, and price, says Gerard Tellis. “Polls suffer from the tyranny of hype. Names that get early recognition get greater visibility in the press, which accentuates their popularity, leading to a positive cascade in their favor. A crucial aspect of this index is the link between innovation measured and current and future financial performance.”

USC (US)—Portfolios of top companies on a new index of innovative firms appear to perform better than the S&P 500—in up markets—and almost as well when markets are down. What’s more, the superior performance comes without excessive risk.

“The results suggest that innovation is a valid criterion of portfolio formation, just as the current criteria of size, value, growth, and price,” says Gerard Tellis, professor and director of the Marshall Center for Global Innovation at USC.

_____________________________________________

 ...In the five years between 2004 and 2008,...a portfolio of top 20 firms in the Index yields a cumulative return that is 46 percent higher than the S&P 500 for concurrent years.

_____________________________________________

Tellis and Andreas Eisingerich, assistant professor at Imperial College, London, developed the index using a sample drawn from Fortune’s list of the 300 largest U.S. firms and Business Week’s list of the 100 most innovative firms, between 2004 and 2008.

...“A crucial aspect of this index is the link between innovation measured on this index and current and future financial performance,” says Tellis.

... “The ultimate test of an index is whether it can predict stock market performance a year ahead,” says Eisingerich.

For example: In the five years between 2004 and 2008, an annual paper investment of $10,000 in a portfolio of top 20 firms in the Index yields a cumulative return that is 46 percent higher than the S&P 500 for concurrent years.

The authors are updating the study to include 2009 and 2010 data and plan to test the performance of the index on real investments.

USC news: www.usc.edu/uscnews/

Deb:  This is probably about the audacity of "free."  The key words here seems to be:  monetization, ROI, and access.  I laid my hands on my first iPad this week.  Honestly, it seems to be an awesome addition to an array of cool electronics for deliver content.  TV has a new screen.  Fast, intuitive, fun, light, purse friendly (Dooney & Burke is about right.)  

___________________________________

Open source evangelists say that Apple’s draconian policies will stifle developers, and they certainly have a point. ...Yet developers are still lining up for a chance to be included on the iPad, because the opportunity to reach paying consumers is so rich.

___________________________________

 Excerpted: 

Apple (APPL) has been catching a lot of flack from tech types, who say the iPad stifles innovation. They’re absolutely right, but they’re also missing the point. The iPad is designed to encourage consumption, not creation, and on that front it succeeds with flying colors.

Apple has gone out if its  way to make the iPad difficult to use for anything but consumption. You can’t take a picture or a video. There is no USB connection to upload your own data. ...you can’t multitask, so creating rich documents becomes a hassle.

...you can ...pay to consume beautiful content. ...new iPad users downloaded over 1 million applications and bought 250,000 ebooks. And unlike the iPhone, where many apps are free, a whopping 80% of apps on the iPad are paid.... firms are ...rushing to create apps for the iPad. This device is chock full of gorgeous, easy to use apps for consuming content.

...Google’s (GOOG) more open Android system is still without proprietary apps from heavyweights like the New York Times (NYT) and Netflix (NFLX). Business see the value in Apple’s model, and they are devoting their development resources accordingly.

Open source evangelists say that Apple’s draconian policies will stifle developers, and they certainly have a point. ...Yet developers are still lining up for a chance to be included on the iPad, because the opportunity to reach paying consumers is so rich.

... for those who see the Internet inexorably moving the price of all information to zero, the iPad is a big step in the opposite direction.

Image from Flickr user Curiouslee

Read the full post via blogs.bnet.com

Credit goes to Ron Koller, who found this reference available for download here. 

Excerpts:

TRIZ: A New Approach to Inventive Problem Solving by Jack Hipple, Innovation-TRIZ

What is the biggest challenge you face as a leader?

• – Solving problems?
• – Resolving contradictions?
• – Developing ideas and concepts for new products, new ideas, or approaches?

What is TRIZ?

TRIZ (Russian acronym for “Theory of Solving Inventive Problems”) is an inventive thinking and problem solving process. A brilliant Russian patent examiner, Genrich Altshuller, refused to accept the fact that invention and creativity were random acts. Altshuller thought it was illogical that the creative process, alone, was impossible to understand in a logical scientific way. He thought we should be able to teach the process for developing new, successful inventions.

Altshuller’s vehicle for creating TRIZ was to study global patents, recordings of documented inventions and intellectual property throughout the world. In studying patent literature, he distinguished between mundane and trivial patents (with little inventive challenge), and those few patents (<10%) that were truly groundbreaking. After analyzing the groundbreaking patents, he identified a common set of inventive principles and processes used across numerous areas of technology. Altshuller codified these inventive principles to make them useful across various areas of technology and business. They include: 

• Inventive Principle #1 – Idealized Final Result
• Inventive Principle #2 – Less is More
• TRIZ Principle #3 – Solutions already exist in fields remote from your own
• TRIZ Principle #4 – Search out and resolve the fundamental contradictions 
• TRIZ Principle #5 – Lines of Evolution
  

TRIZ arrived in the US in 1990. Today, many Fortune 500 companies use TRIZ, including Proctor & Gamble, Dow Chemical, Hewlett-Packard and BMW. They use TRIZ to design better products, less complicated processes, understand disruptive market trends and improve their handling of intellectual property.

Samples of the approaches, are available via download here.  Feel free to comment on using this type of approach.