Why social media for the ageing exec?

Colleague and associate Brad Matthews asked the question so here is my list; what are yours? Please add......

1. Naturally inquisitive and open to new anything
2. Just a bit geekish…
3. Prefer to make own decisions about relevance and use of new things
4. Fear of being left behind
5. Wanting to connect with younger peers, staff or children
6. See the potential to improve the way they work or the way their organisation operates
7. Recognise limitations of email (no history, transparency, one to one or one to few, closed, targeted etc)
8. Thought leader looking for new channels to lead
9. Looking for inspiration, being challenged, new contacts for any reason
10. Bored
11. Want to control its use in their organisation
12. Recognise the limitations of existing communications channels
13. Their dog is more techno-savvy than they are
14. They recognise that existing knowledge and systems do not capture the value of conversations ie they are ‘off balance sheet’
15. A way to reach-out to peers beyond their industry
16. Fear of being left behind as the circus you know moves out of town
17. Word of Mouse replaces Word of mouth
18. Virtual business model breaks down through lack of trust - Social Media to the resue?
19. ???

Looking for rural comms challenges in Africa!

I'm looking for help to shape and focus this project for Science for Humanity, details at http://scienceforhumanity.ning.com/group/rodboroughradio.

If you have any NGO contacts in Africa or other developing markets looking for solutions to rural comms problems then let me or Anu Devi (Project Coordinator) at Science for Humanity know!

Are the dynamics of innovation changing?

A comment I posted in response to MIT's Sloan Management Review article entitled "Are the dynamics of innovation changing?"

"Our work at Brendan Dunphy Associates is predominantly with corporations in the ICT space in Europe and I would give a qualified “yes” to the second question. I think it is clear that the work of Christensen has increased awareness at the leadership level of the challenges they face when it comes to instigating radical innovation. However, this awareness is rarely acted upon with the result that they still struggle to create an environment that is capable of generating disruptive innovation. There appear to be a number of deep-seated reasons for this associated with their personal & corporate attitude to risk & reward, inappropriate culture and behaviour and the sheer difficulty of envisaging and effecting the scale of change required without disrupting the current operational efficiency of the business and short-term goals. Partnership, ventures and acquisitions are a typical response to increase innovation capacity and ‘import innovation’ but success is very patchy given the lack of knowledge and discipline as to how best do integrate and nurture these activities.

If, as the article suggests, the bigger challenges we face require ‘boundary busting’ only possible via larger organisations (and public bodies?) then we are certainly going to need significant innovations in innovation to make this a reality given the differing cultures, language, traditions and business models this will entail.

Maybe we can learn from the application and adoption of Disruptive Innovation theory to better understand the practical constraints corporations pose to any innovation theory and thus better help them assess the both the opportunities on offer and develop the new innovation capabilities that will be necessary to thrive in the future?"

Managing beyond Web 2.0 Companies should prepare now for the day when Web 2.0 morphs into Web 3.0.

I posted this comment in response to "Managing beyond Web 2.0 - Companies should prepare now for the day when Web 2.0 morphs into Web 3.0" on McKinsey Quarterly.

"One only needs to see the impact of failing to react to incorrect allegations spread by the web by reading this WSJ article published today (http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/50815,news,iran-nokia-boycott-may-be-unjustified-mobile-phone-freedom-speech-tehran-surveillance) and concerning Nokia Siemens Networks alleged complicity in providing technology subsequently used by the Iranian state to track and suppress dissent. The most telling remark is at the very end from Ben Roome, a spokesman for Nokia Siemens Networks (Head of Media Relations according to his LinkedIn profile) , “Our failure to kill that speculation at the outset has obviously led to a lot of concern about our work in Iran." Interestingly, Ben is a frequent Twitterer on this very issue as well as others re his interests and employment but when it comes to establishing the facts it is clear that it takes more than a web 2.0 channel and a lone voice to correct a flawed perception spread by that very same channel. It requires the organisation behind the spokesman to react in web 2.0 time and display a level of focus, imagination and determination previously unimagined and this is clearly not the strength of most industrial-era organisations past their sell-by date (especially B2B). Bringing them into the world of web 2.0 poses many challenges and no amount of PR sticking plaster will hide the fact that they are not organisationally designed to compete in this accelerated post-industrial era."

RE-IMAGINING INNOVATION: HOLD THE SCIENTISTS AND BRING ON THE PRACTITIONERS

I posted this comment in response to this piece in the Ivey Business Journal, RE-IMAGINING INNOVATION: HOLD THE SCIENTISTS AND BRING ON THE PRACTITIONERS by Declan Jordan

"Declan seems to argue that large-scale investment in technology innovation by public agencies and government does not positively impact businesses and could be better focused to do so. This may well be the case in Ireland (and elsewhere) but I think there is a danger that the technology-led innovation baby is thrown out with the enterprise promotion and growth bathwater. The linkage between the two is worthy of clarification and may lead to a better understanding of how best to promote enterprise. But it is important to understand that we need more, not less, “techno-fetishism” and large scale public and enterprise scientific investment in the future if we are to address the large-scale problems posed by climate change, renewable energy, population aging, pandemics, widening global inequality, 9 billion mouths to feed in 2050 etc etc.

It is also worth noting that in the USA and the rest of Europe (if not Ireland) almost all businesses have been doing to varying degrees exactly what Declan proposes for the last 10 years i.e. listening to and engaging contributions from managers, salespeople and customers, increasingly via the Internet. This is not to be discouraged and I am sure we will see this trend continue as the connectivity internet technologies enable within and outside the enterprise improve and the principles of more ‘open’ innovation involving all stakeholders gains ground in more conservative industries.

However, it can be argued that this focusing on the ‘edge’ of the organisation for innovation insights and activity has led to a move away from internal R&D and created a problem we have today of a vast increase in ‘me too’ and low-value innovations and a dearth of radical or breakthrough innovation focused on solving real problems or moving the goal posts. This trend may also reflect an increased risk-averseness in enterprises (partly due to the dominance of the CFO and their inappropriate financial metrics) as well as ignorance as to the role, value and processes of innovation and the implications for its long term absence. If this trend continues unabated then maybe we will see a permanent shift in the innovation eco-system where all meaningful research is publicly funded or in partnership with the private sectors with the role of commercial enterprise innovation limited to connecting, listening & adapting rather than risking the innovation journey itself?"

Vodafone Receiver N°22 - Seizing the moment: The lamp posts on Brick Lane

A comment on Vodafone's Receiver N°22 article "Seizing the Moment: The Lamp Posts on Brick Lane"

"I work in the innovation space and one related observation I have is the correlation of our increased connectedness on our expectations of and appetite for radical innovation.

As the article points-out, email, texts and Twitter ‘demand’ a response and demand it ‘now’ and this pressure to respond can be to the detriment of considered thought and result. One trend in innovation for the last 10 years or so has been away from radical and longer-term innovation that requires significant time and money (but therefore high risk) towards shorter term more evolutionary innovation with lower risks and clearer, shorter-term payback.

There may be several reasons for this increased ‘risk averseness’ and short-termism (which can be observed elsewhere in society, especially politics) including market de-regulation, increased competition as a result of globalisation, more demanding stock holders, a bonus culture that rewards the short-term and reduced public investment in fundamental (long-term) research. But at a personal level I have also witnessed how much more difficult it seems to be to get individuals engaged in corporate innovation activities to ‘disengage’ from the present in order to conceive of radically different futures and more radical innovations.

There appears to be both more reluctance to do this now than there used to be, an increased unwillingness to live with the uncertainty and lack of an ‘answer’ or a clear response that this process necessarily entails. There is a palpable desire to retreat back to their more ‘transactional’ comfort zone of question or statement/response ie the answer is ‘out there’ if we could only access it and its frustrating not to be able to do so, there is no simple response.

Does our increased connectedness have any bearing on this observation? Have we become less open to embrace and live with uncertainty as a result of increased connectedness and is this more disturbing than enlivening? Does our increased connectedness have deeper ramifications for the way we think and perceive the world and is there a danger they accelerate ‘short-termism’ and therefore our ability to make the more considered and radical changes needed, in politics and society as well as corporate innovation? I appreciate hearing your experience and views."

Innovation briefs....

The Guardian highlighted innovations in cement in "Revealed: The cement that eats carbon dioxide" but a closer look reveals that the UK cement industry is far from optimistic about its future....

I came across Afri Gadget somehow or other and was struck by how simple innovation can be. Sometimes it is too easy to assume innovation is about big bucks, IP and complexity but maybe it is wise to return to basics, at least now and again? In Africa there is often no alternative....

Innovation is also a strong theme at Timbukto Chronicles - "A view of Africa and Africans with a focus on entrepreneurship, innovation, technology, practical remedies and other self sustaining activities by Emeka Okafor" - take a look and leave a comment for Emeka, TED (You Tube for the brain...) Africa Director...

And finaly in this brief round-up of my innovation surfing, take a look at my post at the Science for Humanity forum on the value and challenges for cellular mobile in Africa - there is hope!

Government, bureaucracy and innovation failure...

The text below was taken from a recent WBCSD newsletter concerning a recent visit to one of the few UK biomass power generation plant’s; it nicely illustrates the bureaucratic challenges government presents to innovators :

“The plant also suffers from some policy decisions: The environment agency has stopped them from using a local source of oversize compost as a fuel as they define it as “WASTE”. Use of this locally sourced fuel was part of the operational budget for the plant. The response seemed to be that the problem was site-specific although there are still no clear guidelines as to what clean wood chip is defined as-a ‘fuel’ or ‘waste’. As the biomass sector develops this will become more of an issue.

The plant was partially funded by capital grants from Dti Bioenergy Capital Grants Scheme and Advantage West Midlands. Unless these grants are repaid the plant is unable to benefit from ROC’s on the energy it delivers which again substantially upsets the operating budget.

These crazy decisions could only arise in the UK where we purport to support renewable energy initiatives but stick lots of red tape all over them. No wonder we lag well behind the rest of Europe!!”

So What?

What can we do to remove these barriers and create a more hospitable environment for much needed innovations such as these? Is ‘joined-up’ government still a vision rather than a reality? Government is keen to promote innovation but what part is it playing in innovation failure and what more should it do to remove barriers?

(The above comment first appeared at as a part of a NESTA discussion "Failing to Innovate" on innovation and failure.

Do Patent Pools restrict innovation?

This post on TechDirt by Mike Masnic agrees with recent research by Stanford academics Ryan Lampe and Petra Moser “Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation?
Evidence from the 19th-Century Sewing Machine Industry” that patent pools restrict innovation, essentially by "locking-in" innovation at a level beyond which there is no incentive to improve.

Patent pooling is increasingly common in high-tech where thousands of patents from multiple owners have to be licensed in a device such as a mobile phone. Patent pooling such as in this announcement "Patent Pooling Could Reduce LTE Competition" for LTE next generation mobile technology are meant to ease the traditional bilateral negotiations between patent owners - to agree fees, avoid litigation and reduce product release delays – all potentially expensive outcomes.

But are they good or bad for innovation? As Mike says,

“The core problem, once again, is confusing innovation (finding something that the market actually wants in a way that it wants it) with invention (coming up with something new). When you get a patent, or set up a patent pool, what you're effectively doing is declaring a stop on any incremental improvements above that. It ignores the fact that real innovation is an ongoing and never ending process of improvements and tweaks, often made by others. But, in blocking out the ability of others to make those improvements -- those real innovations -- you slow down, drastically, the pace of innovation. In the end, a patent pool is just like a bigger patent, and has the same negative impact on innovation, just on a larger scale.”

So What?

I don’t disagree with Mike that patent pools may restrict further innovation in their own domain but he seems to forget the fact that in at least some domains, like mobile, it is essential to have a stable and economic platform at a viable cost in the market and patent pooling exists to accelerate this process. Further activities in the mobile value chain depend on it, such as applications and content, and given the complexity and pace of change in products is there a viable altenaive?

For example, without an economically viable standard for LTE (for which the patent pooling announcement above is intended to help deliver) ‘dependent’ innovation in operating systems, applications and content technologies will be delayed, more expensive or less universal as a result and thus delaying uptake, usage and value to the consumer – the ultimate purpose of innovating in the first place.

Maybe patent pools are a constraint on innovation but maybe they are necessary if we are to generate innovation in other domains further up the value chain? Their use may help to release this innovation more quickly, cheaply or widely and as a result an inferior innovation (or standard that results) is a price worth paying?

Greenpeace Sarkobama viral campaign poster in Paris.....courtesy of Cedric at http://cedric-paris2e.blogspot.com/2008/12/sarkobama-revealed.html

Siemens ‘Inventors of the Year’ solve real world problems

“Our success is based on efficient innovation management. This can only be achieved when our innovation strategy is part of our business strategy and is geared toward attractive markets with long-term growth prospects.”

Professor Hermann Requardt, CTO and CEO of Siemens’s Healthcare Sector at the last Siemens annual ‘Inventors of the Year’ awards in Munich back in October.

So What?

I though this was an interesting quote as many firms appear to think innovation exists separately from business strategy and markets, that it exists in a disconnected and parallel world to thir present reality. Because of this they struggle to see and access it; innovation always remains an idyllic destination (the sandy beached pacific island?) that is beyond their reach or means.

Too many innovation processes (where they exist at all) do not start with a grounding in business and market strategy but with a vague hope that innovation can re-invent the business based solely on the inspiration and knowledge of individuals. Strategy, research, data and customers are often viewed as an encumbrance that can only limit and reduce the potential and scope for innovation rather than help to focus and stimulate it.

This failure to anchor an innovation process to the problems and opportunities of the marketplace and the strengths and assets of the business can lead to ill-conceived innovation initiatives that will not achieve their stated goals but contribute to a sense of failure, stasis or under-achievement.

In these uncertain economic times it is more important than ever to ensure we focus our innovation investments and the best place to start is to ensure they are firmy anchored in satisfying the needs of the business, customers and markets.

More on the Siemens awards at "Siemens increases number of patents by 10% to 55,000" at finchannel.com.

McKinsey's Assessing Innovation Metrics Global Survey Results

Some interesting stats from this McKinsey survey (Assessing innovation metrics: McKinsey Global Survey Results) that deserve to be highlighted:

1. 65 percent rank innovation in their top 3 strategic initiatives in 2008 compared to 70 percent in 2007.
2. 16% of the respondents say that their companies don’t use any metrics to assess innovations.
3. Companies are much likelier to rely on metrics for outputs than for inputs.
4. Respondents say that their companies use about eight metrics, on average, to assess innovations.

Successful innovators take more of a portfolio approach and use metrics to help create a balanced portfolio.

So What?

From the H2FL perspective the relatively sparse use of metrics is interesting as it suggests a palette of 8 metrics can be sufficient to gain the necessary feedback and control across a portfolio of projects.

In my experience the portfolio concept much loved of VC’s is still not appreciated outside of some large corporates. I think there is more work we need to do to sell the idea of a balanced portfolio aligned with an innovation strategy and the metrics necessary to shape and monitor it. I’ll add that to the list for How To Farm Lightning: sustainable innovation 2009!

Announcing British Design Innovation's Innovation Filter

This is an interesting initiative from the British Design Innovation in the UK - “30 leading design and innovation professionals team up to provide Innovation Filter for entrepreneurs & originators”.

Assessing the viability of ideas is never easy requiring a mix of knowledge and skills that is hard to found in one place, let alone one person. By pulling together a panel of this size of industry experts the BDI should be able to add real value to the filtering process to the benefit of innovative individuals and smaller firms without the financial or other resources to do it alone.

Says, Maxine Horn, CEO, British Design Innovation, “Whilst we are in a culture of Open Innovation, the majority of Corporates cannot view a proposition that is not patent protected due to the threat that doing so might cause to their own IP position. Thereby Originators commit to the cost of patent applications with little knowledge of whether their proposition is viable, and thereby their Patent valuable”.

Observes, Joss Newberry, Innovation Director, Opius “there is a significant drop-out rate of patent applications prior to the granting of a full patent, whether UK, European or global. Financial issues may cause some applicants to drop out but the fundamental issue for patent applicants is translating the idea into a commercially interesting proposition in an often time sensitive environment. The challenges facing patent applicants could be risk reduced with the existence of an organization that can join the dots –BDI is unique in its capability to do this with the support of the UK’s leading product and service design development Directors”.

F1 & Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital collaboration re-visited...

Back in April I mentioned (courtesy of Nesta) in “Extreme collaboration: The Formula 1 Intensive Care Unit” how Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London had worked with Formula 1 teams “to halve the number of mistakes in the surgical and intensive care units through a collaborative project.”

So What?

With the withdrawal of Honda from F1 and predictions of the demise of F1 as we know it (90% salary cuts anyone?) then maybe it’s the time for the collaboration to be re-visited but with the roles reversed? What could Max Mosley of FIA and Bernie Ecclestone of F1 learn from Great Ormond Street to save their pampered baby? We all know collaboration is a two-way street so now the chips are down maybe its time for the favour to be repaid by the men in white coats?

McKinsey's Innovation Matters - show us where you see innovation

McKinsey is looking for your photos of local innovations to seed its innovation debate…...feel free to add a copy of anything you submit as a comment to this post.

"Our forthcoming publication What Matters is a collection of short essays by leading thinkers, scholars, and CEOs on big topics: climate change, globalization, health care, sustainability, the credit crisis, innovation, and more. In one of these, author and designer John Thackara writes, "If you want to find solutions that make a difference, the best place to look may be the community center down the street."

We agree that innovation is often best when it comes from small, widely distributed experiments. So we're inviting you to send us digital images of things that represent innovation in your part of the world. We will reproduce a broad sampling of these images in What Matters, as a photo-essay, and make them available online.

Please send your images to us at innovation_matters@mckinsey.com. Tell us what the innovation is in your photograph, and please limit the size of the image to 5 megabytes."

So what?

Its good to see McKinsey attempting to leverage the power of ‘the crowd’ and recognising that a picture is a great way to capture at least some types of innovation. One of the first challenges I often face in a company is to establish what innovation is actually going-on and this is not as straightforward asit may sound.

One techniqiue I have recently tried with success is to get employees across the orgnisation to submit photos and short (2 min) videos of product, service and especially process innovation (most have picture phones so this is not the challenge it used to be). This has proven a great way to get this process started and can reveal a lot of hidden innovation and a more innovative culture than leadership previously imagined.

Front End of Innovation Europe, Monaco 26-28 January 2009.

View the complete "Front End of Innovation Europe 2009" programme pdf. Quote VIP Priority Code: TT25DISC15 for a 15% discount.

To Register, Call Terrence Johnson at +1 646.895.7425, Email: tjohnson@iirusa.com.

I hope to see you there!

Last fart of the ferret

I rather identify with this excerpt from The Economist’s skunk works Inside Project Red Stripe back in 2006, the story of which is now available online and as a book.

“Taiichi Ohno, father of the Toyota Production System and an inspiration to many Systems Thinkers. In an interview with an Economist journalist (and which I have never been able to trace), he reportedly likened creativity in a survival culture to the last fart of the ferret. When a ferret is cornered it emits a powerful stench like a skunk, and employees, he said, when facing closure of the company, would come up with some of their most creative ideas. [Incidentally, if you search for 'last fart of the ferret', Google will rather coyly ask you if you meant 'last fruit of the ferret' - a delightful possibility which, sadly, produces no results if you accept the suggestion.]”

I knew necessity was the mother of invention but not that a ferret's fart could save so many company's from closure, surely worth knowing in these stressed times?

The blog is well worth a read for the multitude of questions it poses and if anyone out there thinks corporate innovation does not need deep thought, careful attention and active management to make it happen then think again.

Can China innovate – you bet it can!

This article from Strategy & Business of Booz & Co. (“China’s Long Road to Innovation”) suggests that China will find it very hard to evolve from a global manufacturer to a global innovator.

“Ultimately, Du and other Chinese experts question whether Chinese enterprises and companies can ever innovate technologically. One issue is culture. In Western and Japanese companies, researchers are allowed to develop ideas rather than being told which ideas to pick, and they are allowed to fail. These conditions require a delicate balance between a company’s top management and its technical talent. But in Chinese companies, which tend to be very centralized, individual initiative and risk-taking are rarely rewarded. Chen also argues that Communist Party control of the economy is a disincentive for innovation. “The party wants all the good ideas to be its ideas,” he says.”

So What?

Is the Chinese problem deeply rooted or can at least private firms create the necessary space and culture to innovate as we do in the West? Or will Chinese firms find an alternative way to innovate that leverages their strengths and minimises their weaknesses, just as their Japanese and Korean neighbours appear to have done? Who says the Western approach to innovation is THE way rather than one of many, an approach adapted to the ego-centric culture of the West?

It is so easy to forget that many innovations we now take for granted originated from huge government initiated and funded post-war programs, from NASA moon landing and nuclear power to jet aircraft and telecoms. I for one will not dismiss the Chinese as destined to fail at innovation, especially in a world where original research is ever more scare and under-funded, no more so than in the USA.

China has formidable potential to innovate whole new industries just as the US has done before it. The problems stated in the article are only tactical and just as Chinese entrepreneurs now have the space to make money (unimagined 20 years ago) so Chinese researchers can have the envronment and motivation to innovate – and probably very quickly once the problem is fully recognised.

I would suggest the US and Europe should be seeking to re-invent themselves to compete rather than continuing to look at China through a lens that only distorts rather than reveals and assumes THEIR way is THE way.

Thames Valley Innovation Conference 2008, Reading, UK.

The third annual conference on innovation hosted by TVEP but the first for me. This one-day event (a part of the Thames Valley iFestival running until the end of November) had a distinctly technology-focused agenda, as is to be expected given the high-tech corporate inhabitants of the Thames Valley.

Unfortunately I missed the Keynote session but I learnt something from most of the sessions and stayed until the end, unlike most delegates. The exhibition was not great though Bemoko are worth a call if you want simple business apps delivered via mobiles. Apparently they had built a conference site for the hosts but it had not been promoted so a lost opportunity to demonstrate innovation there!

There was not a great deal of networking opportunities given the format of the event but it was good to chat with guest speakers from O2, (Dr Mike Short, VP of R&D), Microsoft (Andrew Watson, Senior Director) and Syngenta (DR Mike Bushell, Head of Site) about the challenges of global R&D, the mobile industry and open innovation.

Andrew Watson of Microsoft provided some insights as to how they encourage and channel innovation and besides an ideas exchange I was intrigued to hear of their “Think Week”. Once a year Bill Gates (I ugess not any more) and Steve Balmer dedicate a week to sifting through formal written submissions from any staff member with ideas they want to suggest. I guess the main aim is to by-pass potentially obstructive management whilst providing access to the leadership. Knowing a submission is going straight to the top apparently ensures there are few time-wasters and submissions are generally well conceived.

My attempts to unearth some best practice secrets as to how to manage a large distributed global R&D organisation drew a blank with wide scale agreement that it was indeed a challenge! Syngenta kept the model as simple as possible with only a handful of sites with each specialising in a research focus thus minimising required interaction between sites. Key start-up, knowledge transfer or other major activities were achieved via a dedicated expat, usually someone wishing to return home to the new site and therefore having a strong interest to make the project a success.

?WhatIF! were the star turn and Harry Hobson and Andy Reid did a great job in enlightening the crowd as to the value and need for creativity in the innovation process - and a few ways to help it along. ?WhatIf! work with Samsung, Nokia, Vodafone and other technology firms so I will be exploring via Harry how best to partner on farming innovation lightning.

The SME presentations were as enlightening as the corporates and especially Malcolm Duckett of Speed Trap (web site monitoring) and Alex Pratt of Serious Readers (specialist reading lights), both of which in their different ways demonstrated the need for tenacity and flexibility when pursuing ideas and overcoming inevitable setbacks.

If you are in the area I would recommend attending this event if it runs next year as planned but the organisers need to find better ways to network participants and develop a clearer focus for the programme presentations.

Conference site at http://www.theinnovationconference.net/.

Internet of Things, Internet of the Future- Nice 2008

A little late I know but the Autumn conference season really does stretch my capacity. I could only attend the first day of this two day event in Nice in October but most of the presentations are available from the above title link.

So What?

I am not deep into RFID or related technologies but I guess I was a little surprised as to how slowly things are developing in the area given the bout of promise a few years ago. Not only are technologies fragmented but are a lot of legal and regulatory issues regarding confidentiality and privacy in a world rendered transparent by emerging tracking and identification technologies. This conference was as much about those as it was about technology in general or the future of the Internet in particular.

The usual challenges of developing accepted standards raises its head and its clear self-interest groups are still battling to get their way given the enormity of the opportunity in the long term. But will the vision of a truly connected world with more devices and objects than people connected to the internet come about? IPv6 may enable this but there a lot more issues to be addressed and from this conference it is clear that most have nothing to do with technology.

How long should tags on goods be active and how do we know they have been de-activated? Should the consumer have access to the data stored? Who does the data belong to and how is the data shared? The list is a long one so don’t expect to see the Internet being taken over by ‘things’ for a while yet and it may be that there will be many alternative networks vying for the right to host the connectivity of things.

An example of Living labs at Workspring by Steelcase

Springwise brought this Workspring Living Lab to my attention earlier this week. Based in Chicago, this commercially available meeting space will double as a lab to test new products from office furniture manufacturer Steelcase.

As Herman Miller made apparent with their ground-breaking Aeron ergonomic chair back in the early 90’s, there is much more to an office chair than keeping your bum off of the floor, as my bum will gladly testify.

So What?

Wikipedia defines a Living Lab as a “….new research paradigm integrating both a user centred multidisciplinary research approach and a user community driven innovation based on real life experiments.”

Living Labs first arose in the Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) space and are particularly strong in Europe where the EU is promoting via several initiatives and a map of them is avalable at OpenLivingLabs.

In essence they are a half-way house for innovations that are ready to escape the laboratory but are not yet sufficiently developed to survive in the real world. A Living Lab is a place where innovations can be monitored and evaluated in a realistic but controilled environment whilst being used by end users. The observaions and feedback generated can then be used to adpat and further develop the innovaion as well as maybe better positioning the innovaion in the marketplace.

Living Labs are another step in the evolution of innovation as it migrates from a closed and R&D dominated focus to a more open and connected paradigm more closely focused on satisfying real needs and attuned to real users from day one. They are another way to engage users and customers earlier in the innovation process and this is very important for the increasingly complex products and services that require a high level of user acceptance in order to succeed, such as mobile data services.

Maybe office furniture does not immediately fall into this category and this Steelcase initiative is more about marketing than innovation (or innovation in marketing?) but either way we are going to see more of these "middle-space" or "bridging" initiatives both within and outside of ICT.

Nokia and Open Innovation

Open innovation and Nokia Philosophy, Dr. Bob Iannucci, CTO of Nokia and Head of Nokia Research Center. from DevilsRejection on Vimeo.

This is a great introduction to Open Innovation. Though presented from the context of Nokia it is very relevant to a much wider audience and especially the ICT universe.

FYI, Bob is no longer CTO at Nokia though still works in an advisory role.

42 minutes, recorded in Espoo, Finland earlier this year.

Innova Lyon 2008

Unfortunately I could not accept the kind invitation of the French EU Presidency to attend Innova in Lyon last month.

The Innova conference website now contains most of the presentations and a quick scan does not reveal much new, as is mostly the case at these “acado-governmental” gigs; the innovation is elsewhere and closer to the edge.

Eric Von Hippel was there and his presentation is worth a scan if you are not familiar with the work or want an update from of the father of ‘user-led’ innovation theory.

So What?

One buried gem I did enjoy is Gary Waterworth Owen’s of the Centre for Sustainable Design in the UK and his presentation on Lifecycle thinking. This is something close to my heart and the sustainable innovation focus on which How To Farm Lightning is trying to build.

In his presentation Gary notes that there are 4400 US patents for mousetraps, less than 20 have made money but there are still 400 new patent applications per year. This is in stark contrast to the untapped opportunities the world presents for innovation given our preoccupation with the front-end of the product life-cycle and almost total neglect of the back-end. This results in huge waste, inefficiency and pollution and also raises deeper questions as to our values and the way we choose to live.

Innovating in a recession....

I posted a comment on this NESTA post on innovating in a recession. Here is the concluding advice and the full comment can be seen at http://blogs.nesta.org.uk/connect/2008/10/is-a-recession.html?cid=136170255#comment-136170255

"So, my advice is:

1.Spend more time with your existing customer’s and get to know how they are impacted by the downturn and current plans to deal with it - look for new insights.

2.Use these insights to identify new ways to help them beyond current offerings and lower prices and explore areas that they may have previously rejected but may now be open to.

3. Re-visit your strategy and re-orient it towards the new market conditions – success will go to the agile and the courageous and this may be a better time to change direction than you think."

Brendan at www.HowToFarmLightning.com

Posted by: Brendan 24 Oct 2008 11:24:28

Free H2FL Workshop - November 18th, London....

I and colleague Paul May will be hosting a free and informal H2FL workshop at NESTA in London on Tuesday November 18th.

We will use the ocassion to test a few ideas and components for the 2009 programme with a small group of associates and hopefully a few new faces as well. If you would like to be one of the lucky 'new faces' then drop me an email with your profile and why you would like to attend to info@HowToFarmLightning.com.

The workshop will run from 10.00 to around mid-afternoon and is kindly hosted by NESTA at their facility in central London.

I and H2FL co-host Paul May hope to see some of you there!

Tesco profits from the banking crises?

'Every cloud has a silver lining' is a popular expression in my family and it looks like Tesco here in the UK knows an opportunity when it sees it.

According to The Guardian, Tesco CEO Tom Leahy "Consumers change faster than companies. It is not that there is not a market, it is that you are not set up for the market that is out there."

Not only was he taking a swipe at his more upmarket competitors such as Marks & Spencer being slow to react to the tighter spending constraints of customers' but also his plans to create a retail bank and provide mortgages.

According to the article, Tesco managed to create and launch a new low-cost product range in less than 12 weeks (an industry record?) to slow the move of ‘value buyers’ to the discounters Lidl and Aldi.

But Leahy sees an even bigger opportunity to leverage the Tesco trusted brand into the retail banking space. Though this plan has been on the cards for some time, the move looks extremely positive given our loss of confidence with the banking sector in general and the demise of so many of its previously solid brands, both in the UK and on Wall Street.

Retailers in general, and Tesco in particular in the UK, are much more open, accessible and ‘understandable’ than any bank and are huge cash generating machines. They traditionally benefit in a downturn as spending on entertainment, restaurants and holidays is curtailed in favour of staying-in with increased spending on the food basket as a result.

So What?

Are we about to see the birth of a new generation of retail bankers or is Tesco (once again) an exception?

Can we see the same trend elsewhere, particularly in the US with Wal-Mart and Target?

Is this a sign that retails finance is now truly a commodity and success will go to the lowest cost provider, something retailers know all about?

Is this a classic case of disruptive innovation?

And what does this say about innovation and change capabilities, knowing your Customer, agility and and leadership? Let me know your thoughts.

2009 named European Year of Creativity and Innovation

This item from China View reports that the EU today designated 2009 as "European Year of Creativity & Innovation".

So What?

I am not a great fan of government agencies designating day's or year's so have low expectation's of this initiative to nudge us Europeans in the 'right' direction compared with our more innovative American & Asian brothers.

But why 'Creativity & Innovation' and not just 'Innovation', or indeed just 'Creativity'?

Surely they cannot believe that we Europeans are less creative than our peers elsewhere? Creativity oozes from our European pores and Europe ranks highly in the creative industries, design, art, music, film etc etc.

What we lack is the ability to create value via innovation (not creativity) and this is largely due to systemic market constraints and linguistic diversity in our highly fragmented European marketplace.

But I guess dealing with these problems is way too hard (especially in a deteriorating economic climate) and they have to do something to justify thier existence and satisfy the Treaty of Lisbon, whether creative, innovative or not.

If all it results in is another round of poorly organised, uncompelling and self-referencing conferences as I am currently witnessing here in France under the French EU presidency then I know my vote.

What do you think? Waste of time and money or a chance to move the debate on?

Update: See http://www.naider.com/noticias/detalle.asp?id=6278 - looks like it will pass (like most these 'events' without us noticing, not sure why I bothered....

Machiavelli on innovation ....

I just love this quote on innovation I recently discovered via Lawrence Lessig's "The Future of Ideas: the fate of the connected commons in a connceted world"

“Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is indifferent partly from fear and partly because they are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experince.” Machiavelli, The Prince.

So What?

Human nature appears not to have changed since Nicollo Machiavelli's treatise on power written in 1513. Will it ever?

H2FL Webinar archive...

View and listen to the latest H2FL webinar hosted by Frost & Sullivan Ltd.

Click here to enter the Genisys meeting centre, enter 02030480911 as the meeting number and click View Archive. Enter your name & email address on the following registration screen-no password required- and select view 'Innovation 2'.

Depending on your browser configuration a small codec may need to be downloaded, accept the option if provided.

Massively Muliplayer Games take-over where Gaming leaves off...

World Without Oil (WWO) is a great example of a new generation of ‘massively multiplayer’ collaborative games that utilise several communication tools in the pursuit of entertainment and learning.

It demonstrates the possibilities to use existing technologies in more creative ways, to leverage dispersed knowledge and collaborate to understand complex problems whilst having fun at the same time.

World without Oil sits at the convergence of gaming, social networking, communities and scenarios. It moves gaming on from its traditional dependence on a single proprietary platform, whether Sony’s, Microsoft’s or Nintendo’s by leveraging many communication options and scaling beyond the sofa.

WWO enables player’s to explore, learn and deal with a fictitious but plausible scenario – in this case a world without oil. Its genetics are more those of mass-collaboration, mobs and the open culture of the internet than gaming. It deviates from the gaming roadmap and evolutionary innnovation curve, eschewing improving graphics, machine-human interaction and entertainment, which together both define and limit gaming’s marketplace and audience today.

WWO did not emerge from a gaming studio. It is not an evolution of gaming but rather an attempt to apply social media to create new games, games that free player’s from the sofa and appeal to a new audience with a new agenda.

WWO heads in another direction, focusing on the ability to connect large numbers of individuals interested in better understanding a real-world issue and moving out from behind the 3rd screen and console in order to play it.

So What

As posted here, web 2.0 technologies and social networking seems to be lacking compelling applications beyond the core of ‘my network’, picture and video sharing and personal profiling and dating.

WWO provides something that many social networking and gaming platforms seem to lack, a reason to connect beyond entertainment and the trivia that dominates web 2.0 a turn-off for many.

WWO has led the way and others are imminent with the Institute For The Future’s SUPERSTRUCT due in late September. Every school, university and engaged citizen and campaign can benefit from these Massively Multiplayer Games that are set to engage and entertain in equal measure and in ways that will change both the scope and focus of gaming forever.

Sustainability & Sustainablity - a love hate relationship?

I made the comment below in response to a post on Innovation by SIT, "Sustainability & Sustainablity - a love hate relationship?", original post can be viwed here.

"Whilst accepting that “innovation” & “sustainability” are overly-used and misunderstood buzzwords I have to admit not to seeing them in any way in conflict or pulling a business in opposite directions as you seem to imply. For me, the sustainability agenda is another ‘driver’ for innovation and joins the classics already established - Social, Technology and Economic. It is simply another factor in the innovation equation and yes, it may thus further complicate innovation decisions and priorities but it does not fundamentally change anything about the innovation process.

I think your assumption that innovation always requires ‘more’ and is therefore in conflict with sustainability a false one; the conflict is more between sustainability and traditional patterns of ‘consumption’ (consumerism and related business model where more and bigger is better) rather than innovation, which is only a means to an end, whatever end we desire and define.

If we add ‘Re-think’ to the beginning of the 3 R’s sustainability mantra (Reduce, Reuse & Recycle) then maybe we have a more positive context within which to innovate sustainably? Give that many costs for existing product’s are “external” to the price paid i.e. not factored into the cost of production and sale price, then going even further and starting with ‘Re-costing’ existing product’s may help to create the oft missing burning platform necessary to spur sustainable innovation.

Both innovation and sustainability suffer from relative ‘newness’ compared to other disciplines and activities and therefore lack clarity and I think this is the key challenge for many individuals and firm’s. I have always believed that “less is more” applies to innovation so I guess sustainability just confirms me in that belief!"

Do schools today kill creativity? (Ken Robinson, TEDTalks)

I came across this inspiring and humourous talk via a post on the UltraFuture blog. It is a condemnation of current public education systems and a rallying call for radical change in the way we value and educate our children. Without this change they will be poorly equipped to deal with the uncertainty and challenges their generation will face. With a son in the French education system (where there is little space for creativity in any guise) I certainly share Sir Ken's concern.

"Jobs-to-be-done" in practice....

Here is an example of the “Jobs-to-be-done” (J2BD) tool used to ‘reverse engineer’ an existing product, in this case Ultra Motor’s A2B Light Electric Vehicle (LEV) as profiled by Innosight in this blog post. We use “Jobs-to-be-done” (J2BD) in H2FL workshops and demonstrate its power to ‘reverse engineer’ Starbuck’s current product offering. One highlight here enhancement here is that Innosight identify Social, Emotional and Functional jobs to create a more rounded and complete picture of the customer needs they believe are satisfied by the product.

So What?

firstly, Innosight makes a common mistake of comparing this product with traditional gas-powered scooters when in fact its competition is much more likely to be a growing list of alternative electric scooters, the Segway, a bicycle, public transport etc.

What is important when applying the J2BD tool is to drive-out what hidden needs are uniquely being addressed by the product or service, especially if in a competitive and crowded market such as LEV’s. It takes creativity and a 360° perspective to do this and any simplistic analysis is likely to be less than useful.

The only sign of uniqueness in this anlaysis of the product is the innovative business model being applied in Stuttgart, Germany. Maybe this is the only unique feature but if it is, it addresses a more specific need not highlighted here – access to suitable transportation without capital investment and puts the product into a different competing category.

Like all tools J2BD needs careful application and any superficial rendering of it will likely lead to the wrong analysis and conclusions’, whether ‘reverse engineering ’ an existing product or trying to identify the needs for a new one.

The Process - a light-hearted look at innovation ...and marketing....

This video appeared on the Communication Nation blog last week - well worth a view for all of those involved in innovation and marketing - enjoy!

A step towards Open Innovation in the auto industry?

I was interested to see these comments by Bob Carter of Toyota reported in the Detroit Free Press last week,

“As an industry, we cannot let automotive suppliers, the very backbone of this business, collapse at a time when the industry needs us most," Carter told the Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City on Thursday. "The only way we can survive and thrive is to collaborate and share our best ideas and build alliances between OEMs and suppliers that will blossom and endure," said Carter, Toyota's vice president and general manager of Toyota Motor Sales USA. After his speech, when asked what kind of a cooperative structure he would like the industry to adopt, Carter said automakers need to be more open to listening to the innovative ideas that suppliers have. He also said Toyota tries to be more open than other automakers but plans to be even more open in the future.”

So What?

The tag line of “How 2 Farm Lightning: sustainable innovation” is that we need to Stop hunting and Start farming innovation. One of the shifts in behaviour firm's need to make to achieve this is to move from 'competing suppliers to competing eco-systems' i.e. raise the game and and innovate across a supply chain to quickly and effectively meet innovation challenges, spreading risk, leveraging knowledge and engaging commitment in so doing.

Today an auto OEM innovates a new product within its walls and then engages with suppliers to source components at a cost, volume and quality level it defines. Some, like the Japanese led by Toyota, are more open than others but in general this is the base model with few significant variants. This can often be a very adversarial relationship and result in the suppliers bearing the brunt of cost cutting and efficiency campaigns, with the results we see now and Bob alludes to in his quote.

This is the way it has always been and has worked reasonably well in a world of stable steady growth, evolutionary technology and few shocks. But it is no longer working in a more competitive, volatile and open marketplace as the US auto industry struggles with the impact of high oil prices, increased material costs, pending recession and better positioned foreign competition.

More importantly, this model will not scale to meet the next wave of radical innovation in power-trains and systems required to take the industry into the 21 century of clean, efficient vehicles and universal transportation systems and an industry that needs to more closely resembles the open IT industry rather than the closed auto industry of today.

If, as Bob Carter indicates, he wants to engage more deeply with suppliers and raise the value of the relationship then he will have to find a new business model to support it and overcome a lot of engrained mistrust. This will be very, very tough but maybe the deep-seated problems faced by the auto industry in America today will provide the ‘burning platform’ required to make such a fundamental change.

He will certainly find it a lot easier with the new external technology providers entering the auto supply chain than those steeped in the rust belt culture but as the locus of the industry continues to move West at least he and fellow execs will have a model to 'stop hunting and start farming' innovation.

For more on this topic download the recent H2FL article published in ‘The Partner 2008’ (produced by Partnering Sourcing Ltd) here.

Disrupting Mobile innovation?

As this article in Spiegel Online International states, the mobile industry is about to be disrupted again; Swedish-Indian private start-up VNL intends to launch its low-cost and energy efficient base station for the “next billion mobile users”.

Whilst consumers in the West salivate at the latest Apple iPhone the less glamorous network equipment sector that powers the networks is focused elsewhere. Growth in emerging and developing markets drives the majority of new sales today, but at prices that leave little margin for the struggling vendors or truly satisfy the needs of local operators.

VNL sees opportunity to address the next billion mobile users and in so doing “disrupt” the leading mobile telco vendors of Ericsson, Nokia Siemens and Alcatel Lucent and their more price competitive Chinese competitors Huwai and ZTE.

They aim to do this via their solar-powered network base station specifically designed to meet emerging market needs. More energy-efficient, simpler to install and easier to maintain than today's offering, they hope to open-up the market to more low-end growth so network operators can be profitable with revenues of a few dollars per subscriber rather than $5-$10 today.

If delivered as conceived, VNL will under-cut current offerings by a least a third and maybe much more. They will enable networks to be installed and operated at lower costs and in places with no grid electricity or need for increasingly expensive diesel for generators. They aim to drive demand in rural and impoverished areas across India and elsewhere. Not only will this improve the quality of life for millions but it will drive GDP growth and encourage enterprise and development, as mobile penetration has already demonstrated in many emerging markets (see the GSM Association for further details).

So What?

For students of innovation, VNL's solution could be a classic example of 'disruptive innovation'. On the one hand such disruptive innovation can expand a market by lowering the cost for Customers for whom the current solution is too expensive. At the same time it can more cost-efficiently (and environmentally in this case) meet the basic needs of existing Customers for whom current solutions are both too sophisticated and too expensive, discouraging usage and adoption.

The potential for such “two-sided" disruptive innovation in emerging markets is significant. We will surely see examples in other industry’s as the limitations of products adapted from Western designs and dependent on Western infrastructure, support and resources reach their natural limits but fail to address the real needs of billions.

Can Western firms react quickly enough to address this market themselves, and should they? Are they willing to disrupt and cannibalise their own existing businesses and product lines in order to do this? And are they willing to concede direction and control to emerging market subsidiaries and local R&D or will it be left to company’s such as VNL to disrupt in the future?

No financial, commercial or client interest to declare.