Revelnnovation

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

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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.

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

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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?

Excerpted:  

Posterous (considered by some to be Tumblr’s biggest rival) is finally allowing users to create pages to accompany their blogs.   Unlike Tumblr however, Posterous is enabling fans of the service to add a few extra features to pages that may appeal to keep-it-simple bloggers, not to mention spammers as well.

We decided to use the same great editor that you are already using for posts. This means you can edit rich text, upload any media, and add and edit photo galleries. All of the cool features that we’ve created for posts—like link auto-expansion and syntax highlighting—come along for the ride with pages. [...]

We allow you to create a page that redirects to a static URL. You may want to do this if you want to add a link to one of your social networks, or to a page tTo [sic] do this, simply click on the “Page Options” tab, and add a URL where it says “Redirect to:”. When your visitors click on a link to a redirect page, they will be redirected to the URL you specified. (Official Posterous Blog)

Although it’s great to see Posterous finally add pages (which is considered a standard feature in Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr), the page redirect feature is potentially dangerous as one could redirect a curious user towards a site filled with malware.

Perhaps Posterous could consider giving users about to be redirected a link to the actual site (similar to how Facebook warns users who are about to be redirected towards another site).

via blogherald.com   by Darnell Clayton

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.

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• 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...

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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

via flickr.com

Excerpted:  If you've always wanted to set up a blog, but aren't particularly web savvy or don't want to invest a lot of time in blogging, you may want to consider using Posterous.

Posterous (pronounced "PO-ster-us") makes it ridiculously easy to set up a blog and share your thoughts, photos, videos and favorite links with others on the web via email.

Deb will share her story, lessons learned, and tips & strategies for staying on top of social media development and the decision questions that will help you make wiser choices for how you budget your marketing time and money. Deb's presentation will include looking at the niche of marketing for independents, consultants, and small to medium sized business, which may be overlooked in much of the social media research geared to large business.

To sign up for attending this lunchtime presentation this Wednesday, January 20th, 2010, go to the Facebook LA2M (Lunch, Ann Arbor Marketing) events page either here on the Reveln Consulting events page here or on the Facebook LA2M event site here.

She'll also share her contacts with those in the business who are discovering new trends regularly and links to tutorials and helpful Posterous blogger examples.

Deb Nystrom is an organization development consultant and leadership coach based in Ann Arbor, Michigan (United States) with 20+ years of experience serving business, higher education (University of Michigan+), and non-profits. Reveln Consulting provides organizational development and leadership coaching and is all about helping you access the strengths, innovation, and yearnings of your leadership team and organization to fully achieve your mission and vision.

Learn more about Deb by following these links:
* http://debnystrom.posterous.com/
* http://www.linkedin.com/in/dnrevel
* http://twitter.com/RevelnConsults

Sign up today on the Facebook events RC page  here or  LA2M here.  The event is offered at no charge.  Donations are accepted to help cover LA2M costs.  See you there!

Excerpted: 

Library

This section contains reviews and references to recommended innovation books and articles. It also contains references to where literature can be bought or downloaded.

2010 –   Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

Author(s): Shirky, Clay Year: 2010 Publisher: Penguin Press Category: Online communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: The author of the breakout hit Here Comes Everybody reveals how new technology is changing us from consumers to collaborators, unleashing a torrent of creative production that will transform our world. For decades, technology encouraged people to squander their time and intellect as passive consumers. Today, tech has finally caught up with human potential. In Cognitive Surplus, Internet guru Clay Shirky forecasts the thrilling changes we will all enjoy as new digital technology puts our untapped resources of talent and goodwill to use at last. Shirky envisions an era of lower creative quality on average but greater innovation, an increase in transparency in all areas of society, and a dramatic rise in productivity that will transform our civilization.

 

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Author(s): Shirky, Clay Year: 2009 Publisher: Penguin Category: Online Communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: Blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 accoutrements are revolutionizing the social order, a development that’s cause for more excitement than alarm, argues interactive telecommunications professor Shirky. He contextualizes the digital networking age with philosophical, sociological, economic and statistical theories and points to its major successes and failures. Grassroots activism stands among the winners.

 

Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business

Author(s): Howe, Jeff Year: 2009 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Category: Online Communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: Beyond the wisdom of crowds is the work of crowds, a powerful and transformative source of creativity and an economic engine that defies traditional rules. Jeff Howe has captured a complex and vital change in the business landscape: in the next few years, your customers could become your collaborators, or your competitors.

 

We-Think: Mass innovation, not mass production

Author(s): Leadbeater, Charles Year: 2009 Publisher: Profile Books Category: Online Communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: Society is no longer based on mass consumption but on mass participation. New forms of collaboration—such as Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube—are paving the way for an age in which people want to be players, rather than mere spectators, in the production process. We-Think explains how the rise of mass collaboration will affect us and the world in which we live.

 

Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges

Author(s): McAfee, Andrew Year: 2009 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Category: Innovation Technologies Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: In just a few years, Web 2.0 communities have demonstrated astonishing levels of innovation, knowledge accumulation, collaboration, and collective intelligence. Now, leading organizations are bringing the Web’s novel tools and philosophies inside, creating Enterprise 2.0. In this book, Andrew McAfee shows how they’re doing this, and why it’s benefiting them. Enterprise 2.0 makes clear that the new technologies are good for much more than just socializing-when properly applied, they help businesses solve pressing problems, capture dispersed and fast-changing knowledge, highlight and leverage expertise, generate and refine ideas, and harness the wisdom of crowds.

 

Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results

Author(s): Hansen, Morten T. Year: 2009 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Category: Online Communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: In today’s competitive environment, companywide collaboration is an imperative for successful strategy execution, yet the sought-after synergies are rarely, if ever, realized. In fact, most cross-unit collaborative efforts end up wasting time, money, and resources. How can managers avoid the costly traps of collaboration and instead start getting the results they need? In this book, Hansen shows managers how to get collaboration right through ‘disciplined collaboration’.

 

The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation

Author(s): Bacon, Jono Year: 2009 Publisher: O’Reilly Media Category: Online Communities Type: Book Purchase: Amazon Summary: Online communities offer a wide range of opportunities today, whether you’re supporting a cause, marketing a product or service, or developing open source software. The Art of Community will help you develop the broad range of talents you need to recruit members to your community, motivate and manage them, and help them become active participants.

Free revealing and the private-collective model for innovation incentives

PDF article

Author(s): von Hippel, E. & von Krogh, G. Year: 2006 Publisher: Social Science Research Network Category: Innovation incentives Type: Article Purchase: Here Summary: Von Hippel and von Krogh summarizes a number of historical well-documented cases (steam engines, semi-conductors, medical machinery, sports equipment) for free revealing. Then pragmatically puts on the glasses of the entrepreneur/innovator and argue for how free revealing

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.)  

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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.

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 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.