From where the ideas might come from AND from where it may NOT.

Ever wondered where you should put in your effort to increase the chances of getting positive innovation outcome, or where you should not? We attempt to answer this question below, where we prioritize many positive and negative origins of innovations. If you find something missing or have a different opinion then we surely would like to hear from you.

Situation 1:
You are looking at sustaining innovation, you know the problem which is not easy to solve, and you need an innovative solution. 

- ideas most probably come from … someone who has already partially or fully, in same or different domain - solved it.
- ideas most probably come from … from a analysing a conflict between two or more expectations of your overall objective.
- ideas most probably come from … how emerging countries getting around it or from a person from different industry all together.

- may NOT come … From someone you were expecting it to come from.
- may NOT come … from your city of operations.
- may NOT come … from a problem statement which has not evolved from its original state during last few months.

Situation 2:
You are looking at creating a disruption in how user consumes the product or a service, even changing the mindset and create completely new need. 

- ideas most probably come from … a serious trouble, and not routine goals and objectives.
- ideas most probably come from … Confidence from your previous success.
- ideas most probably come from … Individual Genius, followed up with knowledge based collaboration.

- ideas may NOT come … from meeting rooms and conferences.
- ideas may NOT come … From a situation where top management is waiting for the team to deliver.
- ideas may NOT come … when you are in a hurry to counter the competitor’s recent launch.

Situation 3:
You are convinced that little drops can add up, and you are keen to innovate at a lowest denominator on a continuous basis.

- ideas most probably come from … Diversity of idea providers, Diversity in opportunities you make avilable.
- ideas most probably come from … Genuine ego to be better than the rest in the market.
- ideas most probably come from … an irrelevant inspiration or derivation of bad or not so good ideas.

- ideas may NOT come … When you are trying to think of an idea!
- ideas may NOT come … From the provider of previous great idea.
- ideas may NOT come … When you receive many ideas and goal is reduced to selecting one great sounding idea.

Announcing winner of DSM e-nnovation challenge hosted on ideaken platform.

Geoff McCue from US who submitted a detailed idea of exercise suit with multi-functional resistance patches is the winner of DSM e-nnovation challenge hosted on ideaken platform. Geoff wins a VIP trip for 2 to the Olympic Games in London this summer. Congratulations Geoff!

The jury's main verdict was that Geoff McCue had submitted a solution that was elegant in its simplicity.

Geoff said "My design was triggered by the variable elasticity of Arnitel Eco, as well as its ability to be shaped into different forms and colours, making it possible to give every resistance level a different colour."

Runners up in the competition were Alexander Xydas with shin pads; Alberto Villareal with a soccer ball; Sebastian Wolzak, Millie Clive-Smith & Seitaro Taniguchi with a prosthetic leg; and Daniel Hernly, who was selected by the popular vote, with a golf glove.

Jury Chairman Francis Aussems, Innovation Manager at DSM Engineering Plastics says: "The quality of the ideas that contestants submitted was very high. The 5 finalists delivered absolutely top professional designs and ideas.” Francis Aussems concludes: "No single entry was the same, and most designs were valid applications of Arnitel Eco”.

The DSM e-nnovation contest, which was launched in 2011 on ideaken platform, invited creative thinkers and designers interested in sports to submit ideas for equipment innovations that could make a difference in any sport. The specified material for the designs was Arnitel Eco, a bio-based thermoplastic copolyester. Karen Scholz, Project Manager Open Innovation at DSM says: "As a company that is strongly committed to open innovation, DSM is always ready to talk to the designer community. We want to create valuable applications with our materials and a competition such as this gives us the insights into people's needs and expectations. This competition enabled us to start such a dialogue about design and sport– we are keen to make it an ongoing conversation”.

Jayesh Badani, CEO of ideaken.com said “We loved hosting DSM Arnitel innovation challenge; it was an exciting experience to reach out to a unique mix of innovators from material science, design and sports domains. This example showcases how open innovation is not only for technology advancement, but also for market advancement.”

Crowdsourcing for not only Technology Advancement, but also for Market Advancement

So you have spent a lot of time, effort and money to come up with that very niche and breakthrough product. Thankfully you have also achieved remarkable success with it and have found various applications for your product. But have you explored all avenues? Are you missing out on other opportunities of using your product in diverse areas? How can you be sure that you have explored enough if not all?

This problem is not new. Traditionally companies rely on hiring consultants who are experts in their field to give them suggestions or in some cases, actually leave it to their customers to further develop it. But now with the advancement of crowdsourcing, it is possible to use the crowd to further develop new application ideas. The advantage is the diversity of ideas. Also research has shown that experts and customers will only help in getting incremental innovations or application ideas, in related areas. For truly blue sky thinking and disruptive application ideas, we need to reach out to unrelated audience. Breakthrough and disruptive ideas are more likely to come from the freaks and geeks, more diverse the audience, the better the probability of finding something really out of the box.

So how do you go about it and what are some of the success factors when using crowd to get application ideas for your product?

1. First and foremost, ensure that all jargons and standard information are eliminated when describing your product. This is important to keep a sharp focus on the key aspects otherwise the reader might lose interest quickly or end up looking at what is not important for the purpose at hand (e.g. Avoid putting standard information about your company at the beginning)

2. Ensure that the key strengths and limitations of the product are highlighted. Don’t use your marketing material; instead use internal technical specifications to arrive at the product boundaries. Specifically – don’t try to steer the reader towards any specific area of applications.

3. Avoid temptation to go to people you know – take a chance with unknowns, especially across domains and expertise.

4. Beware of the fatigue which sets once you get the ideas. It is like, now you got the ideas, you can look at it anytime. Chances are you won’t, and even if you do, the rigour might give it a miss. Key is to finish the evaluation soon after the ideas are received.

5. Keep an eye out for the invisible potential in the ideas received. As a rule of thumb, spend at the least, as much as you spent on preparation, on executing the process of receiving ideas.

So is this applicable to any kind of product? While the concept is applicable to any kind of product, niche products, probably, are the best place to begin with.

ideaken helps organizations and SMEs to leverage crowdsourcing for product application ideas, identifying partners and market expansion.

Diversity - hard to define, but has pretty good impact on business & innovation.

When you come across someone very innovative or creative, most probably you would be looking at an intersection of abilities and the breadth of knowledge. If you zoom out a bit, the communities which are rich in diversity are also fun to be in. Take it to another level and you will find companies which are most innovative are also the ones who support diversity – not by chance but pretty much by design.

However diversity is not an overnight change which you can bring into your community or a company.

Let’s examine ‘Why’ diversity has such positive impact and ‘How’ you can make sure you are not leaving this important aspect unaddressed and how you can benefit from it in your quest for the business growth and innovation.

WHY (diversity has positive impact)

a) It all starts from a very unique environment and culture we as individuals are brought up in . The world is so big that no single community can survive with the same outlook, practices and tools. This  localized and trapped knowledge is pretty much accessible via the people who move around the world.

b) Heard of bio-mimicry, the science of looking at nature and solving problems not related to nature or taking an inspiration and innovate. Diversity is a tool using which one can think from different perspectives, which as we all know can result in inventions.

c) Most probably your company strategy is somewhere trying to capture the long tail of a market, you probably need a similar strategy for your research and development activities, where you can reach out to the long tail of talent, the just in time, and the right match and just for the period you really need it.

HOW (you can promote diversity)

a) Companies do not have a bias in their hiring policies, but the person in control could pretty much influence the not so diverse hiring, best place to retrospect. Though one way to bring in diversity is to bring in people from diverse background, another important way is to reach out to them and engage with them in a mutually beneficial way for a short duration of time.

b) Apply tools which bring in diversity, talk to the wrong people (assuming you have already spoken to the right people!), pick the odd country and imagine your product and services there, may not be for your expansion but just to get away from stereotype market you see around you. You may not be able to build a machine which flies like a bee, but you will surely find an idea for improvement, get inspired, and possibly get close to where you want to be.

c) Long tail of a talent match is all about spreading it wide and letting the receiver decide if he or she would like to engage.  Diversify from your conventional methods of engagements; the good news is it does not cost the earth in this connected world.

ideaken enables your engagement with individuals from diverse geographies, connect to the perceived wrong set of people and engage with someone who could be at the long tail you are after!

Thinking about how to use social media for your innovation needs?

Social Media is slowly maturing and companies are now beginning to explore the potential of using social media for their business. While its use has been proven in customer service, providing post sales support and managing reputation - most customers are still not clear on how to use it for their innovation needs.

Here’s some food for thought. We believe there are primarily 2 methods of using social media channels to fuel innovation.

1. Social media as a Listening in medium to identify trends - This is easy to get started, listening to customers is an old method but traditionally this has always been attempted with a small selected "focus" group of users. With tools like Twitter and Facebook, it is now possible to listen to many users. But of course, by listening to a larger group, it becomes a challenge to identify and work on true trends and separate it from general chatter which is usually present when you have large groups of people talking. Good news is there are also tools available to filter out this noise and make some analytical sense from out of it, though at a early stage of their evolution, we believe the trend is promising.

2. Social Media as an engagement channel - This is a much more strategic way of looking to involve your customers systematically in your innovation exercise and get some targeted responses from your customers. While the benefits of this can be far-reaching, it does call for patience, constant customer engagement, incentives to motivate customers to innovate for you. On your side it needs openness to receive feedback and be responsive.

The method you choose to use is also dependent on the goals of your innovation initiative.

For example – if your business is wide spread and your products or services are household name from a long time (e.g. windows operating system) then 1. Social media as a Listening in medium to identify trends would help. Also when you want to monitor what your competition or the customers of your competitions are saying then again the method of listening is quite helpful.

On the contrary, if you are running a innovation project where you need a specific innovation or a specific solution to a specific problem then 2. Social Media as an engagement channel is more suitable. This method is also helpful in showcasing that you care about your customers and are keen to engage yourself rather than just listening in anonymously.

In summary - the old days of closed R&D and "focus groups" are getting over. Today more and more companies are opening their doors to interested users, suppliers and working out mutually beneficial relationships. The benefits of such approach is not only in better customer co-created products but also the enhanced brand reputation.

ideaken offers systematic and complimentary ways to use social media with your collaborative innovation initiatives. Contact us now to initiate a dialogue.

Innovation spend Vs. Innovation results – Have you recently given a thought to this?

Is it time you looked at how much you are spending on innovation and what you are getting out of it.

There is a possibility that you are doing great, and there is also a possibility that you are feeding a black hole, or you could be somewhere in between.
Nevertheless, you would benefit from the following thought process.

Spread: How is your innovation spending spread? Try bucketing them as Capital cost of R&D infrastructure, Full time R&D people, Maintenance of R&D infrastructure, Outsourced services cost, Cost of promoting innovation culture, and the likes.

Means: What are you means of achieving innovation? Try bucketing them as Market research led, Perceived customer needs, Customer complaints based, Innovation team driven, Driven by employees who are not part of innovation team, Co-creation using external talent, Open innovation, and the likes.

Types: What types of innovations are you focused on? Try bucketing them as Disruptive or Break though innovations, Significant improvement of product or a service, Small but iterative improvements, and the likes. Additionally irrespective of what you offer, you could surely have service innovation as one bucket. You should try to map your innovation objectives of just being in the game to penetrating the new markets to the type of innovations underway at your organization.

For above 3 categories and the respective buckets, arrive at individual targets for your organization. You metrics could then become to not deviate too much for an extended period from the set targets. Setting the right targets would play very important role, however this would primarily be driven by DNA of your organization.

Tracking sheet could look something like below.

Note: The numbers in the table above are for example purpose only.

The most important thing is you are now thinking your innovation spend Vs. Innovation results, that, by far could be the most important take away from this post.

Be method agnostic - for your innovation goals.

Every organization develops certain liking for methods to innovate over a time. I am using ‘Methods” as a broad term – starting from how the R&D division is structured, what are their goals & objectives, who they are answerable to,  processes in place, further extending to the tools and techniques the organization has been using till date.

By being methodical, the organization is trying to bring in some sort of certainty; however there is also a danger of settling in, and getting satisfied with what you come up with. Remember the whole purpose is to innovate, which by all purpose means to come up with something which is new and beneficial - then why not apply the same philosophy for the ecosystem around getting the innovation done?

How about structuring R&D division where every employee, irrespective of his job profile - has to spend say x months in every y years at R&D / Innovation division of the organization. Let’s assume this makes it 20% of your R&D staff is always a rotated staff from other non R&D divisions. While on rotation, you may not produce great results, but just the feel and experience of being in the middle of R&D will continue to add value to your productivity and also to the Organizational Research even after you are back at your usual job profile.

How about making an R&D division have P&L of its own?

How about giving the freedom to use any tool or technique? I know a company where they can’t use 6 thinking hats because they have their own in house methods to brainstorm, no harm in using own methods but why ban other methods.

Collaborative innovation is one of the ways to become method agnostic, because you won’t know what methods the innovator has used, or will not use, most importantly you won’t care about the methods. Other way around is also true, if you truly try to become method agnostic, you are actually becoming more collaborative, more open, because now an accountant also has a chance to be in the research lab, you are more open because you no longer hide your real revenue truly from new research and innovations, you are more open because now an employee is allowed to install a freeware and try out new things in her free time. 

Trying different things and being method agnostic will breed diversity, which has been shown to be the best way to get innovative results.

Not to forget that being method agnostic does not mean getting rid of methods, it mostly means that you are open, collaborative and flexible – basically you are innovative in doing innovation.

How co-creation initiative benefits when these 2 teams talk to each other.

Team 1 – The marketing team, who often arranges customer connect campaigns or competitions, for innovation or otherwise, primarily focused towards brand awareness and to create some buzz.

Team 2 - The innovation team, who is focused internally or at the most with extended network of vendors and consultants working towards finding the next big idea for the company.

There is a tremendous opportunity when these two teams talk to each other.

Let’s explore WHY and HOW you can take some action.

WHY this is an opportunity

The people who opted in or showed some interest for any of your customer connect campaigns or competitions are your low hanging opportunity for co-creation. These are the people who are more likely to know about your products and are already volunteering to be part of your initiatives at some level. These participants are your potential co-creators and you must find a way to nurture this relationship on an ongoing basis.

Also when it comes to a competition, we usually tend to focus on the winners, quite ok, but never forget that everyone who participated has potential which you can explore. These participants in any innovation competition, even if they are not selected - have shown interest in the subject and have some relevant expertise. Your cost of engaging them will be far less than doing it afresh and the results you would get would also be better than finding new set of collaborators often.

HOW you can leverage this

1. Logical first step is to identify the possible internal collaborations and initiate a dialogue. That is - which company initiatives have a potential to be your team 1, 2 … n for this cross leverage.
2. Link up your one off or annual events; - not from a campaign, message, or cause point of view but from an infrastructure point of view. In other words find a better way to leverage all your previous participants without creating too much hassle for them.
3. Give and take – Acknowledge all contributions and feedback. Do everything to make sure that you have compensated fairly to all deserving contributors and you are investing in a future participation possibility. Nothing works like participants promoting you on their own.

ideaken provides consulting solution to identify this opportunity in your company and an exclusive technology platform to bring all your external stakeholders together for co-creation engagement. To initiate a conversation with us, contact us here.

WHEN IT IS BEST NOT TO TALK ABOUT the most innovative feature of your product

When Tata Nano was being conceptualized and talked about in the media, all of us thought that this is a revolution. It was indeed a revolution in technology, and entire world acknowledged it, however the buyer in the market is not impressed, here is why …

For most of the middle class Indians, owning a car is a status symbol, Tata nano does not help in creating a status symbol. The car itself has no issues, it has everything to become a proud owner of, but the Tatas and the media have ruined the image by calling it a car for the poor. It’s a no brainer that the middle class do not want to be categorized as poor or middle class, even if they are one.

At the other extreme are Apple products, where the technology being sold is a bit over hyped, and the price for them in some cases cannot be justified, but I know many who buy an apple product as a status symbol.

The core of Tata Nano’s innovation was in having a vision for a unique car, partnering with SMEs, pushing its engineering staff to “do more with less” and in making the engine more efficient.  All these also contributed in achieving a significantly less manufacturing cost – a first of its kind cost innovation, however sometimes, the most innovative feature of your solution is best kept hidden from your customers.

Imagine one of following three scenarios …

1)    If Tata had never used the word ‘Cheap car’ in any of their communications. If they had simply put this car at par with all other entry level cars, and provide incredible free goodies or discount or best of all - free petrol for years! They could as well afford to replace the whole car after 5 years!
2)    If they would have used their technology advancements to provide C class/ sedan features at hatchback/ entry level prices. You might argue that the purpose of making a car affordable won’t be achieved, I agree.
3)    If their PR was based on a concept of - finally a nano (small) car has arrived, or having a message “why spend more” instead of “spend less coz your are poor”

So how did the low cost airlines pull it off? Low cost airlines worked because the flights didn’t taxi into your garage. No one really had to exhibit their boarding passes.

In the already crowded tablet market in India, the Government of India is talking about launching a tablet for $35 for students and maybe $50 for others.  Question is – how are they going to position it?  Hope they don’t launch it as a tablet for the poor man!

The message for corporate innovation leaders is - Technology Innovation must go in hand with Design, Business and Marketing innovation. Market research is not the best way to feel the pulse of your customers, and innovation also needs a cultural touch.

In addition to a) Product & Technology challenges, ideaken will soon launch collaborative innovation for b) Process, service & business, and c) Design, brand & usability category of innovation challenges.

From ‘First to invent’ to ‘First to patent’ – How does this affect open innovation?

It will be interesting to explore what this change from ‘First to invent’ to ‘First to patent’ means for collaborative innovation / open innovation.

The America Invents Act, is a bill passed by both houses of the U.S. Congress and expected to become law soon, whereby America will move from ‘First to invent’ to ‘First to patent’ system. Most of the world has ‘First to patent’ as a law.

Below we try to look at the consequences to what it means for collaborative innovation (not just innovation), and we invite you to share your thoughts.

“US patent laws synchronizing with the rest of the world”

1) Reduced wasted efforts will help improve innovator’s focus: In the ‘first to invent’ scenario, inventor delays the filing of patent as much as possible, but continues to invest time and money, in turn, risking re-inventing something which is already invented. This issue gets addressed to some extent in the ‘First to Patent’ scenario.
Effects on Collaborative innovation / Open innovation  >   Less time will be spent on fighting disputes because innovator validates the IP before spending too much time on it and hence will have less probability of heart burn for the effort spent .  Additionally ‘First to patent’ will provide more IP confidence to the inventor than a guesswork that he probably is the first to invent.

2) Bigger market place, better innovation ecosystem: A typical inventor will have similar shortage of money to spend on filing for a patent, like he had earlier, but now he also needs to be the ‘First to patent’. The news that the filing of provisional patent is now made simpler, and the fact that innovator is still needed to shell out money for it, in my opinion, will increase genuine patent applications.
Effects on Collaborative innovation / Open innovation  >  Once inventors invest money, he would like to benefit from it, either by staring up a business, by approaching VCs or putting it up in a marketplace for licensing it, all of these will benefit open innovation.

3) Leveled playfield will increase innovation affordability:  If “First to invent” law has played any role in American innovation dominance, which we think it has, with this change might see some decline, primarily because it affects the investors – an innovation support system. It may not be good for America, but we see that as paving a way for levelled ground, and this levelled ground will benefit the world as a whole. World is currently used to being at the receiving end of innovations happening in America, it’s not that the world cannot invent, but mostly they did not invent as fast as America did.
Effects on Collaborative innovation / Open innovation  > Currently innovations are cost heavy as it primarily comes from a developed country, in near further you will see revolution in terms of cost and affordability of innovations.

“Race to patent office or race to invent”

1) Hoarding of Patents by big companies will increase bullying: Biggies would afford to file at will and in volumes. Yes, but can they really afford to file all  they invent, we don’t think so, they might rush to file at the beginning, but we feel that they will go back to the same numbers and pace once the fatigue sets in, in a year or so?
Effects on Collaborative innovation / Open innovation > Big companies can misuse their muscle power in specific scenarios by running to the patent office faster than a genuine inventor.  This is a bad news for collaborative innovation.  Big companies might gain in short term, but they might end up killing SME innovators in medium term, which are one of the channels for corporate innovations. The US corporations which support open innovation ideally should not support this bill. Their international open innovation experience will come handy in aligning themselves to the new laws at home front.

2) Anti - SMEs, Innovators & Start ups:  They will constantly feel insecure about their inventions until they apply for the patent, which is extremely counterproductive. You would rather spend time, effort and money on making your idea big, now you have something else to worry about.  VCs and Angeles would move away from early stage ventures in short term, America pioneered and became world leader in start up industry because of the superior protection for start up innovation. So far investors invested in the IP even if it is not patented; now they won’t have that option and have to look for far more established companies to reduce their risk.
Effects on Collaborative innovation / Open innovation > A new industry around collaborative patenting might emerge.

3) Too big a change, done too fast: We need to wait and see if someone questions the new law in light of the US constitution. The current patent law refers to the ‘inventor’ which as per the US constitution means the person who invented it first and not the person who filed it first.
Effects on Collaborative innovation / Open innovation > You might think that if we can’t protect the inventor, then there is no reason to look forward to collaborative innovation.  For collaboration, first thing the inventor expects is protection. Collaborative innovation will also need to evolve to accommodate this change, and most probably it will soon.

What do you think ?