Why do we go to movies? Because for less than $10, we can see famous movie stars that we could never afford to pay to come to our house for a private showing. Why do we use copier machines? Because we could never afford the time or money to hand write all the copies we want. The Gutenberg printing press was one of the most significant inventions in history. Why do we buy records or CD's? Because, as with movie stars, we could never afford to pay for these singers to sing for us individually whenever we wanted. Copies are cheaper.

Why do we benchmark against the industry's best? Because we hope we will learn something that we can apply to our own situation without having to pay for all the consultants and hard work that was done to get there. We want to "copy" them without having to invest all the time and money they did to learn what they now know.

Making copies is also a significant inventive principle and every once in a while we need reminded of that. Over the past few months, two very clever new products have appeared which solve some long standing every day problems.

1. The first is the problem of people stealing sandwiches from group refrigerators within a common lunch area. What would make you NOT want to steal a sandwich? Maybe because it's not the kind of food you like, so you look for someone else's sandwich more to your liking. But what if the sandwich had mildew on it? You wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, would you? A very new sandwich bag is now on the market with pre-printed mildew stains on the film! Not expensive to do and commands a hefty price. Check out: http://www.thisnext.com/item/7BBC47F6/4ED4FA3B/anti-theft-lunch-bag We "copy" the mildew. The mildew performs its function without existing. Note that there are some interesting product improvement opportunities here. What are they?
2. What's another minor inconvenience? You're on a diet and need to measure portions with special cups or spoons and then put the measured portions on a plate. Several new products have come to market in which the portion sizes are painted on the plates or controlled by sectioning. Type in "diet portion control plates" into your browser and see all the products, or take a look at one of your airline or holiday catalogs. Again, the plates now provide the function previously provided by the extra utensils.

In Europe, a painted image of a highway "slow down" hump that's not really there causes cars to slow down. Where else are two items needed to accomplish something where one could be eliminated and its function provided by "copying" it on to or within another system? What product do you have that could perform the function of something else? The other product gets eliminated, you get to raise your price, and maybe even get a patent. What a deal! Copy something! Eliminate the second thing. Raise your price for the "new" product that does two things instead of one.

The European TRIZ Association's TRIZ Futures Conference is exploring new frontiers this week: geographically, in Timisoara, Romania, and structurally, using a single session for the entire conference. The conference is at Politehnica University--see http://www.upt.ro/ for some of the history and current information on this engineering and cultural site.

The theme of the conference is "Innovative product design" and there is a strong mix of academic, consulting, and industrial practioners reporting on their research in many areas of TRIZ.

The program, with abstracts, is at

http://www.eng.upt.ro/trizfuture2009/files/Conference%20program%20with%20abstracts.pdf

Reading the abstracts shows that ETRIA has succeeded in one of its goals--by moving the conference to different universities, cities, and countries, they expose many faculty and students to the TRIZ philosophy and concepts. A significant number of this year's papers are by people who first learned about TRIZ this way.

We look forward to having first-hand reports from some of the participants in the next few weeks, and pictures will be posted on the ETRIA portal, http://www.etria.net.

Confession of an Early, Remote Customer.

Everyday people use it. Celebrities use it. And even politicians at the national level use it. Yes, it's Twitter! But, what really is Twitter?

About two and half years ago, I read a posting in Techcrunch about an emerging social network to which members easily became addicted. The social network called "Twitter" allows members to respond to one question: "What are you doing?" A member's response, however, is limited to 140 characters! Being a technophile, I easily signed up on Twitter's website. Nevertheless, it took me another two years before I answered Twitter's question of "What are you doing?" Recently, I've been reflecting on why it took me so long to "get it" about Twitter's innovation. To be honest, I'm still getting it. Now, however, I see immense opportunities in using Twitter.

What has significantly changed over time regarding Twitter? The basic format and structure of Twitter's website have remained the same. However, my perception of Twitter has been positively transformed. As an innovation, I regarded Twitter's micro-blogging feature as an example of TRIZ's Segmentation principle or trend. Nevertheless, I did not want to become a micro-blogger. I usually have a lot to say (;-)! In addition, I considered the constant question – "What are you doing?" – as an unwelcome invitation to intermittently reveal trivial snippets of my life to the whole world. And I consider myself to be a rather private person. Consequently, I was an early adopter but practically, a ‘remote' customer of Twitter's service or social network. For about two years, therefore, I did not consider "hiring" Twitter to help me get any "job" done. For about two years, I did not see how Twitter could add value to my "jobs." During that time, I saw Twitter as a social networking platform for broadcasting and receiving trivial information about ‘private and social jobs.' As time evolved, I gradually realized that Twitter could be hired for doing ‘business jobs.'

"Jobs To Be Done" is a concept that is closely associated with Clayton Christensen, the author of books such as "The Innovator's Dilemma" and "The Innovator's Solution." Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is a simple but powerful concept especially for uncovering growth opportunities, designing customer-focused products/services, and developing innovative business models. Actually, JTBD involves hierarchical functional thinking which is prevalent in TRIZ. However, JTBD, is framed from the perspective of the customer and consequently, facilitates customer value innovation. JTBD allows someone to see the usefulness of a product or service from multiple perspectives of the customer; a ‘job' could be technical, social, emotional and/or even political. And a customer could be a private individual, group, business, or non-profit organization.

I admit that for about two years, my perception was limited by looking at Twitter through the ‘private individual' lens. Seeing Twitter through a ‘business' lens has really been liberating.

Many people and organizations are now hiring Twitter to do diverse jobs. Are you hiring Twitter to do any job? Why (not)? I'd be interested to hear your comments.

Best,
Rod.

I was introduced by this book called "Design of Everyday Things" authored by Donald Norman by a friend of mine few years back. I was ignorant to the fact that there is such a great amount of work going on in the concept of User Iterface (UI) design until I read this book, and my further research on the UI arena has really enthralled me about the depth of thinking evolved during the last decade or so. After reading about the concept, I see there has been a subconcious change in my approach to use a product or service, and as a matter of fact, I started criticizing every UI I come across since then, and nothing satisfied me from the User Interface point of view yet. (including iPod).

I think many of us don't pay enough attention to the User Interface of a product we use when the sole purpose of using a product/service is to achieve a function to complete my job. As long as the job gets done even with some difficulties, we as a user tend to compromise on the user interface part, with the exception that some UI's are really ridiculous that people stop using the product itself. Perhaps this approach of giving importance to the functionality than UI slowly started creating a mental model about the perspective of a UI for us, and every other UI we come across incrementally added to the existing mental model of usage scenarios of functions than the UI.

My background and experience as an IT professional helping people to design new software and products and as a customer of various software and hardware products enticed me this line of thinking, what should have come first, the User Interface or Functionality? Designing a new UI in the traditional approach involves understanding the functionality first, thinking about the end customer, their culture, habit, the customer base, and design a UI to cater the different type of such end customers. However, thinking backward from the user perspective, is there way to design an Ideal User Interface?

If you are an extensive MS Office user for the last 5 years, you can probably understand me and the reason about this lingering thought, what should have come first? Work with office 2003 Power point and the 2007 Power Point versions; note the differences in the UI. 2007 packed with more functionality, (and I'm happy with that), but the UI to achieve those common functions that were easy in 2003 became so complicated in 2007 version. Although the UI changes in the 2007 version perceived to be like (how the designer of this product perceived may be) they have simplified for the users, could they have designed the UI first for 2007 for adding more functionality?

I asked the same question to a colleague of mine working as a User Experience Lead, and her answer wasn't surprising. We have always designed the UI for a function that exists. We created the function to satisfy our customer "jobs" and then designed a wrapper around that function to accept the input from them and provide output back, typically known as User Interface. Therefore the role of a UI designer then gets in to the level of making the UI attracting (make it flashy?), reducing the complexity of using it, making it simple to operate, and we are done. Further pushing with my agenda of "UI should come first," my colleague really argued how is it possible to create a UI for a function that do not exist? Fair question, and frankly I didn't have an answer to back up my thinking. It's like creating a roof first for a house before the foundation and the wall.

Ok, if we can't create the UI first for the functionality that does not exist, can we do it other way around, create a function from the UI that I'm working on? To make this possible, can we think about the Ideal user interface? Since every user interface is to achieve some function, can there be an ideal user interface to create an ideal function?

Ideality is a concept within the systematic innovation framework to break the incremental approach in thinking and looking at the ideal scenario we would like to achieve. In other way, ideality is the results of function achieved without any cost or harm. If we can apply this technique for our UI should come first issue, we could ask

What is my Ideal Final User Interface?

An ideal user interface for me as a customer for any product could be that there is no UI. This may sound hypothetical, but the notion here is to bring an idealistic thinking for the functionality.

I would be happy to have my PowerPoint 2007 without any UI at all, but provide me things as and when I needed to do something. For example, if I want to insert a picture in a slide, all that I need is an insert option (only when I need that) where PowerPoint can point me to the place I will load the image from, and more ideally, automatically bringing the best and suitable image for that slide, insert it, change the orientation etc . Well, now I'm talking to a very intelligent Power Point application by Microsoft, because if it to make my ideal UI a reality, a very new intelligent function should be created. By asking the question "what is stopping Microsoft to provide me an intelligent Power Point feature," I may be pushing the ball to the technical guy's court!

Well, ideality does not really exist, so do the intelligent functionality today in the Power Point. Now, if the ideal ideal UI (no UI at all) is not possible, what could be the next IFI (Ideal Final Interface)? Drawing the same Power Point insert example, the next IFI for me should be the insert option UI is so convenient to me that clicking on it would give me a thumbnail view of all "preferred" images, preferably giving me some ratings, also identifying the size, automatically converting them to fit in to my slides etc. Wouldn't that be possible?

The concept of an IFI is more than just for designing the best UI, but also creating a better functionality for the product and overall changing the experience of getting my "job" done as a customer. Now do you agree that UI can come first, what are your thoughts?

Reading The Wall Street Journal and listening to the business news the last few days makes me think we are in a cardiology unit. I have never heard the expression "stress test" used in a business context before, let alone so many times in a few days.

But let's think about this.What is a stress test in a physical or medical sense? Someone with a heart circulatory problem is injected with a radioactive dye and then asked to run on a treadmill at an ever increasing speed while their system is monitored in real time to check to see if the blood flow is adequate. What an interesting analogy! In the banking situation, the government is going to synthesize an artificial situation and decide whether the bank can sustain itself under a financially stressful situation. If not, they will not be able to return the TARP funds (which many banks are attempting to do right now) and will have to remain under "care" of the government.It's easy to run an organization under steady state, isn't it?

When was the last time your company or product line was subjected to "stress"? A competitor came out with a new product? A new patent issued that blocked your entry into a new area? A merger occurred between two smaller competitors that now makes you #2 and not #1 anymore? A key executive hired by a competitor? An unfriendly takeover proposal arrived by certified mail without warning?

It seems to me that it's a worthwhile exercise to create these kinds of stress artificially on a regular basis and see how your organization responds. This is no different than the fire drills you did in school or the emergency drills that I remember from my days in the chemical industry. It's really hard to remember how to put on a Scott Air Pack if you haven't done it in a long time and you're rushing because you see a chlorine gas cloud coming.

Why not do business stress tests? At your staff meetings, make a list of potential wild cards (and of course now you would add to that list the unavailability of short term credit, wouldn't you?) and announce that you will be having "drills" on these subjects in random order or that you will send out a "what if" note associated with a key business headline in that morning's Wall Street Journal.Try this out in the innovation sense as well.

All of you have those yearly and quarterly plans for new product development and innovation. What could upset them? Change your R&D strategy overnight? This will help you determine if your organization's thinking skills aren't honed significantly. You then might find out that your people aren't reacting but thinking about possibilities ahead of time and coming to you with ideas.Pretend you're the Treasury department and put your organization under STRESS.

A recent article published by McKinsey (March '09) quarterly shows this interesting (to me at least) study on the increasing US consumer savings in the last couple of quarters. Well, in a time when we see the bad news all around, the tendency for the rest of us earning are naturally towards saving it for the rainy day ahead. Apparently this article also put some lights on the debt Vs income ratio and justifies the reason behind this savings trend.

However, my interest here is abstracting the contradictions which I think are the contradictions (you may find a different contradiction, which is ok, and good) from the two important stakeholder's perspective, especially when the economists pointing the reasons behind the recession is the lack of (or reduced) consumer spending, not just limited to buying a new home or car, but down to the spending on their vacations, purchasing goods, and even food.

I, as a consumer, first want to save money to spend; from a business perspective, they like me to spend money to keep me in the job. (So that I can save). An interesting vicious circle and the contradiction may be;

As a consumer – Improve my savings Vs As a business – Reduced spending

If I, as a consumer focus only on the savings today, the existence of the businesses will be in question. They want me to spend, but I'm too concerned about my future if I don't save.

There is also a physical contradiction for the consumer: I Save Vs Do Not Save – I want to save for the better and make sure that I can survive during this period, but I don't want to save all my money (or want to spend) to make the businesses thrive so that I have my job!

According to TRIZ, when we are in a contradictory situation, there is an opportunity for innovation without compromising both the stakeholders need. I have no idea how my friends actually "Save" money back there, but presume they save using various financial instruments available, including, but not limited to, stocks, properties, mutual funds, pension funds, and even bank savings. (I may be completely wrong for bank related savings since what we have seen in the last few months of abysmal collapse of banking behemoths could have triggered another new trend in the way people save – Still an opportunity for innovation if you can identify that trend).

Translating the above contradictions in TRIZ terms, you have some thinking principles to brainstorm for ideas. I selected the improvement parameter from the classical TRIZ as "Reliability", because I can dependent on my savings for securing my future. The obvious worsening parameter to me here is the "harmful side effects generated", in this case is reduced spending, because I'm keen on saving.

With the following inventive principles, can you generate some ideas for the consumers to save money, and at the same time they spend money so that the businesses can run?
35. Parameter changes
# Change a system's object's physical state
# Change the concentration or consistency.
# Change the degree of flexibility.
# Change the temperature.
2. Taking out
# Separate an interfering part or property from an object, or single out the only necessary part (or property) of an object.
40. Composite materials
# Change from uniform to composite (multiple) materials.
26. Copying
# Instead of an unavailable, expensive, fragile object, use simpler and inexpensive copies.
# Replace an object, or process with optical copies.
# If visible optical copies are already used, move to infrared or ultraviolet copies.

You may select another set of improving and worsening parameter to identify more principles to ideate. The quantity of ideas will certainly lead to quality of your end results. Oh, and do not forget to look at the "resources" available to you if you are serious about coming out with some innovations within your business domain.

In a recent issue of Industry Week (3/16/09) a major point was made about using employee input for continuous improvement without using capital. I would suggest a broader use of this principle through the use, not only of the people resources you have, but a reminder about a powerful, but simple "stretch your mind" concept known as "trimming".

When we look for resources for continuous improvement, we tend to think about either reducing purchased materials and supplies, energy costs, and labor or improving the yields of these same inputs to our process. How often have you really, sincerely asked your employees some really challenging questions such as:1. How could we increase throughput rates by 25% with little or no spending?2. How could we improve the efficiency of our energy use by 25%?

Why do you assume that you and the senior staff have more knowledge than those executing the business activities on a daily business? Maybe in a few areas you do, but certainly not in all. (I must admit that this was in part triggered today by the firing of the Chairman of GM by the President who has an outstanding career record of running profit making corporations).

Sometimes you don't get honest answers to these questions because your employees think that if a process or organization becomes significantly more efficient, their jobs may be in jeopardy. Why not offer a guarantee? I saw a real life example of this at a TRIZ innovation workshop in St. Louis, attended by 3 emergency response operators. At the end of the course, I asked everyone in the room what they were going to do with their learnings when they returned to their workplace. Everyone else in the course spouted off a long list of actionable items, while these individuals said they were going to share nothing. I was dumbfounded and asked them why. They replied that, if they did, their department would become more efficient and they would lose their jobs. What a tragedy and waste! You don't have any situations like that, do you? How do you know?

Another way we normally approach increasing capacity is to start with a base of how much it costs (in operating and capital costs) to produce what we already do. Then our engineering staff calculates how much money we need to spend to increase capacity, reduce energy consumption, increase our distribution network, or to reach new customers. Then we estimate the positive cash flow from these benefits and calculate an ROI to allow us to make a decision.

Several columns ago, we put forward the concept of "trimming"--the arbitrary removal of a part (say an expensive part) of a product or system and then force ourselves to still accomplish its function with the parts that remain. Several simple examples are the "toothpaste in the handle of the toothbrush" product, the "clean the shower while you shower" product, and the the self-reporting of news that is seen on television today. In each of these cases we would have asked the following questions:

1. How could we get the FUNCTION of the toothpaste tube with just the toothbrush? How much money does that save? How much more money could we charge for such a toothbrush for travelers?
2. How could we clean the shower while we are showering instead of using a separate process and time?
3. How could we make the news report itself using the resources already there without our reporters ( the resources by the way are individuals on the spot and their egos at seeing their pictures on TV--a lot cheaper than reporters!).

Now the reporters can focus on higher value work such as news analysis.Times are tough. Capital is tight. Money is tight. No one seems to really know when all the money we are putting into the banking system will stop filling reserves and actually be available for spending. The government in some strange ways is trying to unlock the financial pipeline to get more capital into the system. Why not do it without the capital and stop waiting? If you can accomplish some increases in capacity without significant capital, you'll be ready long before your competitors are.

These thinking concepts don't just apply to manufacturing processes. They apply to ANY business process. How can you increase your marketing contacts with no increase in spending? Ask your people and trim. How can you decrease warranty costs with no increase in spending? No increased capital? Ask your people and trim. How can you retain customers? Ask the ones who left and trim (make it easier for them to return and stay). Ask and trim!

More and more the economic pressures will increase the need for proficiency unilaterally. One way for us to respond to this challenge would be to optimize those things that we currently do. This means of course that we need to get better- and we may already be very good. So although this sounds logical that doesn't mean it is easy to do. In fact, it can be very difficult. Especially as financial resources cause us to reduce headcounts and streamline other expenses. That compounds the issue adding the complexity of having to do more with less. And the more has to be more efficient than it was before. This forces the less into a higher state of expectation. So it is quite a conundrum. Clearly we cannot proceed with a business as usual mindset. Things have to change.

You can't expect things to change just because you need them to. The type of change needs to be intentioned. Also, capability must be provided to those expected to deliver the needed change. This makes these difficult times an ideal opportunity to provide training. As more is expected with less, it seems natural that the innovative ability of all needs to be increased. Therefore, intentional and structured innovative techniques are found to be more important than ever before.

The impetus for change is here. Take advantage of that and get the capability of your staff increased. Let innovation guide us through the storm. It has before and it can again.

Community and Web 2.0 continue to be a recurrent theme in many of the conversations I have with innovation leaders. Helping innovation workers leverage each other is extremely important. The value of intellectual assets within most companies is largely untapped. Designers and engineers need better connectivity to the knowledge that will speed them toward value creating innovations.

In many organizations, the response to this need is to create internal innovation networks. Often ad hoc in nature, the success of these networks has been spotty. Even so, participants are often very excited because even a drop of water is joyous to the parched soul. Information technology can help add significant value to the internal information network, but care must be taken in understanding what needs must be met.

Traditional knowledge management initiatives are broadly viewed as having failed to deliver the goods when it comes to innovation. IT groups have, in good faith, built impressive infrastructures for knowledge management; yet, workers are still frustrated by an inability to get at information effectively when they need it. This is large because the traditional approach builds the access paradigm on models of physical data deployment and arbitrary taxonomy rather that the mental models of access held by knowledge consumers.

Information becomes actionable knowledge only when it is delivered to the knowledge worker when it is needed, in the form it is needed, and in the context of the knowledge worker job. Once the knowledge management system requires the worker to leave their work paradigm and adapt to the model of the data delivery system, the effectiveness of the system is severely undermined.

So, what is to be done to empower innovation practitioners to connect with knowledge and each other? Here are a few tips to answer the question.

1. Build knowledge management structures around the jobs and thought models of the workers

2. Provide active concept delivery systems – toss out the old and failed search metaphor – anticipate knowledge needs and integrate concept delivery seamlessly into the innovation workers tasks

3. Think Passive – build an internal innovation network, but don't be satisfied with an approach that requires workers to actively look for help. Make sure your network is designed to reach out to workers and connect them not just to knowledge but also to each other.

The theme here is simple. Innovation thrives when the innovation workers are enabled through knowledge and community connections. But, these facilities must be provided in a way that support the work of these designers and engineers, and not one that adds more hurdles.

[Crossposted from www.InnovatingToWin.com]

If Bruce Nussbaum's recent posts on the death of innovation have done nothing else, they have generated a lot of reactions in the blogosphere. Although that inner voice is shouting "Enough already!", I can't resist making one more comment on the subject.

There have been some very nice pieces written on this topic in past two weeks. You can find some great examples of these at CounterNotions, Fleishman-Hillard Innovation, and here (of course!). In Kathie Thomas' post (Fleishman-Hillard), she referenced a passage from Bruce's arguments for transformation that I found particularly amusing. The passage reads:

"Innovation" implies changing what is. "Transformation" implies creating what's new. That's what we need today, a huge amount of totally "new."

Well Bruce, let me help you out. Let's crack open the dictionary and see what we find. Hmm… Oh yes, here we go.

in•no•va•tion \i-nə-vā-shən\ noun
1 : the introduction of something new
2 : a new idea, method, or device : novelty

trans•for•ma•tion \tran(t)s-fər-mā-shən, -fȯr-\ noun
1: an act, process, or instance of transforming or being transformed
2: false hair worn especially by a woman to replace or supplement natural hair
3 a (1): the operation of changing (as by rotation or mapping) one configuration or expression into another in accordance with a mathematical rule ; especially : a change of variables or coordinates in which a function of new variables or coordinates is substituted for each original variable or coordinate (2): the formula that effects a transformation b: function 5a c: an operation that converts (as by insertion, deletion, or permutation) one grammatical string (as a sentence) into another ; also : a formal statement of such an operation
4: genetic modification of a bacterium by incorporation of free DNA from another bacterial cell; also : genetic modification of a cell by the uptake and incorporation of exogenous DNA

As you can see, Bruce, you have simply got your definitions backward. Innovation is the creation of something new; transformation is the act of changing something in to a different state which may or may not represent something new. If "totally new" is your prescription, then innovation is the cure for what ails you.

Meanwhile, the EU has pronounced 2009 to be the Year of Creativity and Innovation.

Enough said?

[Definitions excerpted from Merriam-Webster Online]

[Crossposted from www.InnovatingToWin.com]

Ellen Domb posted a commentary about the Holiday TRIZ when the "sub-prime" axes slowly began to uproot the decades old financial institutions like Lehman Brothers. She suggested TRIZ thinking even while you are holidaying to identify innovation opportunities around us. I guess, for many of us the July 4th vacation then was much peaceful and happier than the December holiday when the whole world is reeling under economic crisis and mounting job losses. Come December, I'm not sure how many of us will really enjoy this vacation the way we would like to enjoy by keeping all worries aside.

As a strong believer of "every problem is an opportunity" statement, I see there is a good side of the current crisis we are facing. There is an interesting analogy perhaps relevant here is from the ancient Indian Ayurvedic detoxification treatment (Ancient Indian herbal medical practice), which is suggested by ancient literature. It is said that at least once in 3 years we should undergo a detoxification process to rejuvenate our body and cells to live longer and healthier life by expelling or neutralizing the toxic elements within. During this detoxification period, sometimes lasts up to 4 – 8 weeks depending upon your body condition, you are forced to go through the tough diets and stringent routines and live a life with all sorts of constraints. Drawing the same analogy with a positive frame of mind for today's crisis, we should perhaps consider this as a detoxification package provided by our system to clean up the mess so that our future is better and young.

Now, how can we consider this situation with an opportunistic mindset and enjoy our vacation? What are the possibilities for you as an individual, wanting to do something your own, setting up your own new business, or as a representative of your current organization to develop new innovations, and most importantly HOW can you think out-of-the box and enjoy your vacation?

Extending the "Holiday TRIZ" concept, there are powerful thinking techniques within the TRIZ framework to help you enjoying your vacation by exercising your grey cells and adding some fun, but also generating new ideas for a better future.

Resource thinking: Resource thinking is a very powerful concept in TRIZ considering everything around you as the resources for solving a problem or creating new products or services, which is easily attainable and free of cost (or low cost).
- Resources are Time, Space, nearby systems (product/services), people, and even emotions
- Resources can be found within your domain, the super-system around you
- Even bad things in the system are powerful resource for you

E.g. Do you find people spending maximum TIME inside their houses? Can you create an affordable product or service for them to utilize that time?

Trends: There are nine laws of technological trends in TRIZ. But, look around you; can you identify some MicroTrends? Are people becoming spiritual during the crisis time, how are they spending their money for food items, children education plan, health habits… the lists can go on. The more you start observing small things around you, the better you start thinking about a new opportunity to capitalize the trends.

E.g. Do you see a trend more and more families are gathering to churches, more socialization happening around the church?

It is easier said than done, because we are naturally wired to think about the present worries than future opportunities. Wish you a very happy festival season and a vacation ahead. Hope the New Year will be prosperous with new business ideas, service model and products.

The last Thursday in November is the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. Originally a harvest festival with religious roots, thanking God for enough food to get through the winter, it has evolved into a family-oriented celebration of all the things for which we give thanks, usually centered around a holiday meal where each family member makes a specialty dish, and those who don't cook bring the wine and the flowers. In our family, we go around the table, starting with the youngest child, and each person says what they are thankful for this year—family, good health, new babies, friends, good memories, and one of my nieces has just voted in her first election—she gave thanks for that opportunity, but wouldn't tell her grandfather who she voted for!

What I didn't say at the family celebration is that I am also very grateful for my TRIZ family. We have developed into a world-wide TRIZ community that has characteristics of many families—we don't always agree on everything, but we help each other. Some members observe all the old traditions, some members develop new traditions. Like a family, when someone new joins, we help the new members learn the family traditions, both old and new, then watch as the new member decides which family traditions to observe, or whether to develop new ones. Our family is part-Moroccan, part-French, part-Russian/ German, and part-lots of things, so you can imagine the food at this American feast! And cousin Ariel married Sam from Spain, and he was experiencing his first US Thanksgiving, with all the family and a bunch of friends, and as I was watching him try to decide when to ask questions and when to just pretend he knew what was happening, I decided that the analogy with the TRIZ community was very close.

I am very grateful for the openness of my TRIZ colleagues—we may each think our variant on TRIZ is "best" but we don't keep the variants secret—we publish them, talk about them, and modify them in public. I'm grateful to all the authors who have contributed to the TRIZ Journal (November is our 12th anniversary issue!) and even more grateful to those who have contributed multiple times. We all learn from your contributions, and from the comments and discussions that are ignited by the articles. The commentators and contributors to the discussion forum have expanded our frontiers of discussion—thanks to you all. And a very big thanks to the people who make it all possible—editor Katie Barry and the technical crew at CTQ Media, and all my co-editors, Jim Kowalick 1996-8, Michael Slocum 1998-2008, and Marco A. de Carvalho and Paul Filmore this year.

And the biggest thanks of all to our readers, who I meet in person at the conferences, and meet on-line all the time. I appreciate your words of gratitude for the TRIZ Journal's help in your learning TRIZ, and I appreciate your comments and criticism so that we can make the TJ better. I appreciate the opportunity to be part of your TRIZ community. Thanks!

Excellent papers in both sessions. As before, I'll report on the ones I hear personally, but encourage our readers to come to next year's meeting, and to read the proceedings of this year's sessions. Today's reports will be shorter, because the papers themselves were at a high level of complexity.

Gaetano Cascini reported on research at the Universities in Florence and Milan, structuring the laws of evolution. He reviewed and critiqued work by others which claimed to be a process for forecasting, but was just hypothetical explanations of the laws of system evolution. Gaetano presented a new model for classification of systems so that the forecasting can be used in a repeatable way. As with Phil Samuel's model from Thursday, he starts with an EMS (energy, material, signal) input output model, then uses the TRIZ construct of complete technical system, applied to flow of energy, flow of material, flow of information, etc. He expanded the system operator with the FBS = Function-Behavior-Structure analysis in each window. (Function of a system is the motivation for its existence. Structure is the entities, attributes, and relations between them. Behavior is the sequential changes of objects states governed by laws of nature; it is the link between functions and structure. The result of this disciplined approach to modeling of the system is an increase in the reliability of the forecasting system.

Dmitry Kucharavy presented his work, done with Roland DeGuio at INSA in France, "Logistic Substitution Model and Technological Forecasting," which started with extensive historical and logistic analysis of the dynamics of competition. They have the same goal of unambiguous, reproducible use of the technology forecasting models. The research treats the economic system as a technical system, model its behavior, and uses that model to modify the forecasts. Over 300 systems were studied and modeled to analyze the periodicity and shape of the curves, to understand the behaviour of the system. Conclusion: competition takes place only in common infrastructure. (and other conclusions that are sub-elements.) REALLY great data! And a plan to do much more once they develop new software for analysis. www.seecore.org to see the depth.

Denis Cavallucci (Past President and founding member of ETRIA, as well as member of the faculty at INSA) addressed the difficult problem of formulating the problem to be solved in TRIZ. Current methods have several limitations:

*TRIZ limited to one contradiction at a time.

*Poorly formalized

*Exhaustivity is not guaranteed

*Two major postulates/axioms not used in conjunction, therefore hard to professionalize/ develop a curriculum …

*Contributing factors are the misusage and no usage of laws, wrong formulation of contradiction, incapacity to identify parameters, incapacity to perceive system beyond parameters, etc.

Their new system, called contradiction clouds, is a graphical display of the importance, universality, and amplitude of the contradictions, so that the researcher can decide easily how to begin the work on the problem. The method is being tested with 85 engineering students in both classroom and project situations, and in industrial application at a continuous annealing furnace. There was distinct improvement in the ability to develop clear problem statements quickly.

The next session was called a TRIZ Masters session—it was our good friends Isak Bukhman and Sergei Ikovenko. Isak showed how a standard project roadmap, with TRIZ as a key element, can be modified easily for many different kinds of projects. Sergei presented a continuation of work he has been doing for many years, applying TRIZ to many kinds of environmental and "sustainability" or "green" problems. These are applications of the general TRIZ problem of creativity in dealing with limited resources, and creating benefit without creating harm, but they are now much more in demand.

The parallel session featured other good friends speaking on other good topics—even TRIZ hasn't conquered the problem of conference participation!

He then asked for an international review of ETRIA associated organizations. These were not official reports, just remarks by those who happened to be at Enschede.

AMETRIZ (Mexico)-me

MATRIZ-(International) Simon Litvin

Altshuller Institute (US) Zinovy Royzen

Japan- Toru Nakagawa

Korea Hongyul Yoon

There was extensive discussion about the activities of ETRIA. Members made many suggestions about improving future conferences, and about the role of ETRIA between conferences, to improve communications and research activities.

The members thanked the officers for their work all year and at the conference, and everyone thanked the conference organizers Dr. Ir. Tom H.J. Vaneker and his committee from the Department of Design, Production and Management of the Faculty of Engineering Technology University of Twente. Thanks, Tom!

"…over the history of software development there have not been that many innovations.." I must have heard this statement elsewhere in some forum, but now this is the base for a new TRIZ for software innovation book recently launched. This is the book written and re-written several times in the last four years by Darrell Mann, and something I personally had been waiting ever since he said the concept of a TRIZ book specific to Software. I must confess though, that the anticipation (for this book) had become oblivious to me at some point of time. (A lot have happened in the last 4 years). Last month Darrell launched his latest book, Systematic (Software) Innovation; I'm almost half done with that.

If you have read his earlier editions of Systematic Innovation for business & Mgmt, and Technology, this is an easy read (hence I could finish half), flipping through the pages will do. However, if you are interested in learning TRIZ for software and new to this concept, consider this as a good reference book (still please do read another primer book to understand the basic concept of TRIZ techniques), and suggest a thorough read, but not a very easy read as Clayton Christensen's books..

First impression – Considerable changes in his style; not difficult to read, usage of nice and catchy words, phrases, simple explanation of the techniques. This is a great improvement considering his previous books.

I'm not intending a complete book review here. I need to read (or flip through) this at least till the 10th chapter to do enough justice to that. But, something out-there-in-my-mind is here:

- Interesting examples used across. However, should have had more detailed examples with "real" software stuffs; data structure, algorithms, architecture design etc. Considering the time he had taken for writing (researching) this book, I can understand how difficult it would be. But certainly there is a great scope for the future editions.

- Has covered lot of UI examples. I'm happy to see the Google search engine in this book

- Using perception mapping for software – I was expecting to see something more of this use in software when we were exchanging notes long time back. I don't see anything more than the original perception mapping technique from the Systematic Innovation for Business & Management book.

- Very good, step-by-step approach to applying it in actual problem (He has justified that the software problems are not necessarily "software" problems, but is in the periphery of software) with loads of templates. Templates should help for the first timers, and especially for the software guys.

- A sole good chapter devoted how to teach this – Well thought through. Will help lot of new people would want to embrace this in their organization

- Last couple of chapters about the fascinating (for me at least) concepts about ToE (Theory of Everything). I'm sure he is writing his next book with this concept.

- Couple of things I'm not impressed a) quality of printing – Pictures are shrunk and nothing readable inside the charts and graph etc. b) cost – one of the costliest paper back edition book I have purchased..  - Around $51.00

Finally – Thanks to Darrell. Last four years of applying TRIZ for software in my company (no book targeting TRIZ for software existed until now) deriving our own approaches from the basic TRIZ, and his previous books have been validated now with his examples, approaches. I can go back and show his book, applications, case studies, approaches to those who weren't ready to listen what I had to say without any "master data"!

If you get a chance to read this book, do share your thoughts, views. I hope this book is possibly a foundation, and many more concepts, application, and books will follow..

Day 2 of the TRIZ-Future conference started with parallel sessions on Teaching TRIZ and on business models for innovation. Since I am speaking in the session on teaching, I will refer our readers to the proceedings (available from www.etria.net after the conference) for the very interesting papers in the parallel program.

Robert Adunka from Siemens opened the day reporting on his experience teaching TRIZ within the company. Robert had fascinating stories of the internal politics of the company, and how workshops focused on problem solving, innovation, and patent development helped overcome resistance to TRIZ as a new method. He had extensive data from the classes, and showed how the student and management reaction to the early classes were used to develop the current curriculum.

Gaetano Cascini presented on behalf of a large group of co-authors who collaborated on an EU-sponsored program TETRIS=Teaching TRIZ at School, which is part of the Knowledge Society EU initiative, which has a goal that each individual can use and develop knowledge independently. They have developed an extensive curriculum, supported by animation and on-line resources, which will be tested in high schools in Italy, Austria, Latvia, and Germany.

I was the chairman of the next session, with 3 papers that got considerable audience enthusiasm and controversy. Iouri Belski challenged the group with his views of the cognitive foundations of the TRIZ problem-solving tools. His challenge to experts to lose their expertise to "loosen" their thinking was particularly interesting.

Phil Samuel from BMGI presented a system developed with Rajesh Jugulum that uses parallels with the TRIZ methods to create a taxonomy of inventive principles for achieving robustness in the concept design phase. Nineteen strategies were developed, based on the analysis of 200 inventions, and organized for use by developers, clustered in 4 groups based on the 4 aspects of the P-Diagram (input, output, noise factors and control factors.) Phil showed one example each of a strategy for improving robustness by modifying each of the 4 aspects. Very exciting work—lots of research yet to be done, but very exciting at this point!

Hongyul Yoon from S. Korea showed his approach to non-technical problem solving, working by analogy to technical problem solving, with particular attention to the "effects" methods. It was necessary to develop specific models for function analysis and for the pointer to the effects and for the effects themselves in order to extend the methods.

Karel Bolckman's keynote talk after lunch brought the TRIZ audience into the world of biology and bio-mimicry. Karel is both a TRIZ and biotechnology pioneer. He showed us spiders that control mosquitoes, worms that pollinate tomatoes, and methods that people have for persuading the bio-entities to do useful (human or mechanical) work. A growing area is developing bacteria that can sense chemicals—drugs, explosives, or anything that the designer wants detected. He showed us many crossovers between the studies of bio-mimicry and TRIZ and pointed out ways to expand the research to take advantage of both fields. Karel concluded with a proposal that we can learn from natural systems for better engineered systems by redefining ideality to include all harmful and wasteful effects at all stages of system lifecycle.

We then returned to parallel sessions—reminder to readers to go to www.etria.net for the full program. My reports are on the sessions that I saw!

"Early Experiences Employing the Matrix Principles Modified for the Communications and Electronics Domain" was presented by Paul Filmore, based on work done with his student Nasir Ayub. Paul invited the audience (and our readers) to send comments on the cases and examples that they presented with the help of a large number of industry experts who are not TRIZ experts, to help develop a systematic method of expanding TRIZ into other disciplines.

Ives De Saeger's "Strengthening the 40 Inventive Principles" extended Paul's theme, both by asking questions about the definitions of the principles, the circumstances of their use, and the problems he has observed with people using them. Examples include sticking with the first solution that is found, filtering the solutions when found, not exploring outside one's area of knowledge. Ives'suggestions to strengthen the 40 principles is to change the language to a more uniform vocabulary, and to start each principle with an action verb. Another suggestion was to split the 40 principles into resource parts and recommendation parts. He'll have these posted on www.p41.be in a few weeks and invites comments and suggestions from people who are willing to test the new way of formulating the principles.

Shuo-Kai Tsai reported on his work at the University of Sussex and G. Maarten Bonnema from the University of Twente reported on complementary work. Both identified the barriers preventing industry from adopting TRIZ and found that uncertainty of how to begin, and which tool to use for which problems are significant issues. Tsai's BRIGHT system guides engineers in selecting specific tools in a TRIZ project, and Bonnema's 8 guidelines help engineers pick among QFD, TRIZ, SIT and FUNKEY (Function-Key Drivers Architecture method.) We will be awaiting results on what happens as people start using both of these systems.

Professor Fred van Houten from the University of Twente delivered the concluding keynote address on the research in design engineering in the Netherlands, which is extensive, and deeply involves industry with academia. Photos: Keynote presenters Karel Bolckmans (r. with Boris Zlotin) and Fred van Houten

A very elegant dinner capped off the day. There were two surprise announcements:

1. Next year's TRIZ Futures conference will be in Romania.

2. A special award for outstanding paper was made to Searching for Similar Products through Patent Analysis by P.-A. Verhaegen, J. D'hondt, J. Vertommen, S. Dewulf, J. R. Duflou from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Mechanical Engineering Department, Belgium.

Thanks to Gaetano Cascini and Noel Leon for getting us this abbreviated report on the 2nd IFIP Topical Session on Computer-Aided Innovation, presented in conjunction with the 20th IFIP World Computer Congress (September 7-10, 2008, Milan, IT - http://www.wcc2008.org ), and dedicated to the Integration of CAI systems in the Product Development cycle. IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing, is a multinational apolitical organization in Information & Communications Technologies and Sciences, recognized by the United Nations; it represents IT Societies from more than 50 countries, covering all 5 continents. Working Group 5.4 deals with Computer-Aided Innovation, http://computeraidedinnovation.net. Frequent TRIZ Journal readers will see that several of our frequent authors were participants and award winners for outstanding papers.

35 papers were evaluated in a double-blind process. Final program was as follows:

- A. ALBERS, N. LEON ROVIRA, H. AGUAYO, AND T. MAIER

Optimization with Genetic Algorithms and Splines as a way for Computer Aided Innovation: follow up of an example with crankshafts

- M. ANNARUMMA, M. PAPPALARDO AND A. NADDEO

Methodology development of human task simulation as PLM solution related to OCRA ergonomic analysis

- G. CASCINI AND M. ZINI

Measuring patent similarity by comparing inventions functional trees

- D. CAVALLUCCI, F. ROUSSELOT AND C. ZANNI

Representing and selecting problems through contradictions clouds

- D. CEBRIAN-TARRASON AND R. VIDAL

How an ontology can infer knowledge to be used in product conceptual design

- G. COLOMBO, D. PUGLIESE AND C. RIZZI

Developing DA Applications in SMEs Industrial Context

- S. DUBOIS, I. RASOVSKA AND R. DE GUIO

Comparison of non solvable problem solving principles issued from CSP and TRIZ

- O. KUHN, H. LIESE AND J. STJEPANDIC

Engineering Optimisation by Means of Knowledge Sharing and Reuse

- V. F. TELES AND F. J. RESTIVO

Innovation in Information Systems applied to the Shoes Retail Business

- A. J. WALKER AND J. J. COX

Virtual Product Development Models: Characterization of Global Geographic Issues

Posters:

- A. AMATO, A. MORENO AND N. SWINDELLS

DEPUIS project: Design of Environmentally-friendly Products Using Information Standards

- R. ANDERL AND J. RAßLER

PML, an Object Oriented Process Modeling Language

- F. BELKADI, N. TROUSSIER, F. HUET, T.GIDEL, E. BONJOUR AND B. EYNARD

Innovative PLM-based approach for collaborative design between OEM and suppliers: Case study of aeronautic industry

- C. CEVENINI, G. CONTISSA, M. LAUKYTE, R. RIVERET AND R. RUBINO

Development of the ALIS IP Ontology: Merging Legal and Technical Perspectives

- B. CRAWFORD, C. LEÓN DE LA BARRA AND P. LETELIER

Communication and Creative Thinking in Agile Software Development

- N. DÖRR, E. BEHNKEN AND T. MÜLLER-PROTHMANN

Web-based Platform for Computer Aided Innovation

- H. DUIN, J. JASKOV, A. HESMER AND K.D. THOBEN

Towards a Framework for Collaborative Innovation

- S. GRAZIOSI, D. POLVERINI, P. FARALDI AND F. MANDORLI

A systematic innovation case study: new concepts of domestic appliance drying cycle

- R. C. MICHELINI AND R. P. RAZZOLI

Product Lifestyle Design: Innovation for Sustainability

- MIN-HWAN OK AND TAE-SOO KWON

A Conceptual Framework of the Cooperative Analyses in Computer-Aided Engineering

- D. REGAZZONI, R. NANI

TRIZ-Based Patent Investigation by Evaluating Inventiveness

The program was enriched by the Keynote speech by Prof. Noel Leon Rovira on "The future of Computer Aided Innovation" and by a roundtable on "The role of computers in Innovation-related activities" (moderator: Gaetano Cascini):

- establishing the differences between innovation, invention and optimization (Roland De Guio);

- identifying the requirements for CAI systems (Rosario Vidal);

- how to integrate CAI systems in the Product Cycle (Noel Leon Rovira);

- how to link CAI tools with existing PLM systems (Marco Taisch);

- how to identify and create collaboration opportunities with other IFIP WGs (Open debate).

The BEST Paper Awards went to

- G. CASCINI AND M. ZINI

Measuring patent similarity by comparing inventions functional trees

- D. CAVALLUCCI, F. ROUSSELOT AND C. ZANNI

Representing and selecting problems through contradictions clouds

The presenters of the winning papers have jointly agreed to leave the 750 Euro Grant offered by the IFIP TC5 Executive Committee to Sébastien Dubois, co-author and presenter of the 3rd classified paper:

- S. DUBOIS, I. RASOVSKA AND R. DE GUIO

Comparison of non solvable problem solving principles issued from CSP and TRIZ

I'll see many of these same authors next week in the Netherlands at the ETRIA meeting, and hope to have more to report, and we hope to get some of the most TRIZ-oriented papers for publication in future issues.

Couple of years back I was explaining the Ideal Final Result (IFR) concept to our engineers (Computer engineers) using the example of "search". The question we tried to answer; what is the IFR for the function (for consumers) search. Since then I was intrigued by the potential possibilities in the human-computer interaction aspect of one of the most active phenomena on the internet, and search was always a fascinating topic to sell TRIZ concept to computer engineers. Recently Google released their browser (Chrome); before I wanted to install it myself and reading some of the fine prints about Chrome, the concept of IFR with "search" struck me queerly. Before I analyze why, let me try to describe some of the IFR's we used to fantasize about.

In TRIZ Ideal Final Result means achieving the maximum functionality without any harm and increasing the overall cost (significantly). I assume the cost of developing a browser for Google should not be expensive considering the 20% time given to engineers doing something their own!

What is the Ideal Final Result for us in the "search" function?

- We never want to search if we know everything – This one is beyond the science fiction indeed.
- What if my system can understand what I would be searching in another few minutes – Something like a mind reader?
Possibly some commercially viable IFR's
- I get paid for searching. Currently, searching is a free service for me.
- My search engine selects the keyword automatically and searches for me.
- My search engine knows what I need to search the moment I open the browser
- My search engine knows from where (my location) I search and what
- My search engine understands my situation in which I'm searching and giving the results based on that. Example; searching for hospitals for, and I get the results with the hospitals very close to the place I'm searching from.

A search engine does my actual work –I'm writing a research paper on cognitive thinking and emotions, and the moment I hit on the search, I may get the results related to the topic I'm searching, and search engine recommends an extra paragraph. (Hmmm...This is a cool feature for me to finish some pending articles…)
- Browser understands my emotions and search based on that. My blood pressure is so high after a meeting with my boss, and my browser is providing me some tips to cool down myself. (Think about integration with my mouse embedded a blood pressure sensor and browser)
- Searching what I may need tomorrow

The list can go on:

When Google announced their browser Chrome last week, the immediate connection made was – "Search" and "browser", as in a function diagram interacting each other. Naturally, it is pretty evident why Google should develop own browser and enter this market, which is a very competitive from the era of Netscape, and also having partnered with Firefox supporting their browser for sometime.

They may have nicely packaged about their browser capabilities, (I must admit some of them are unique though), however, that doesn't give their browser an edge on what's there already, especially FireFox or Safari for a common user like me.

Illustrating the entire thought process behind launching a browser, what I believe Google's attempt to bring a browser is nothing more than to implement the next generation search feature, indeed a very innovative thinking and an innovative way to achieve the same via their own browser.

Few Ideal Final Result's we discussed above has been implemented in some part of the world, not necessarily specific to the search, but in similar context. Product like Autonomy is already providing intelligence searching, but with a limited knowledge base (internal to the organization). However, bringing intelligence to the search for the mass, like the way Google excelled in the search engine isn't very easy with a restricted user and knowledge base.

How could Google fill this gap? A dedicated browser for using their own search engine should help them understanding the usage pattern, context in which we search etc and add some brain. Browser as an application running in my own PC, can facilitate more actions, record/log the instances, situations, applications I'm running and more to understand me as a user.

Here is a classic (?) feature:

When I search for the latest movie and book a ticket through online booking site, my search engine knows that and records it; after few days, I'm enjoying some music on my PC and suddenly remembers this movie I watched and want to check out the option to buy some music and open the browser to search. Bingo, there comes your browser and tells you, dude – here is the best site to purchase this song rated best by your friends (remember I also use my social network) from the movie you watched last week!
Well, perhaps not just fantasies after reading this news I guess – Be sure to read Chrome's fine print . Some of the terms and conditions are very close to achieving the search IFR, like self searching, not searching etc, if they get to know what I do using their browser, the way I described above.

Incidentally, they have amended some of the clause mentioned in the copyright license, but still I believe they are on to something. Let's wait and watch.

Current discussion about innovation has been dominated by the need to create a culture for institutionalizing innovation.

I posed the question "What does culture for innovation entail?" to my students representing cultures of France, China, Korea, Azerbaijan, USA, India, Spain and Romania. (I would like to hear from you about culture change that you have experienced at corporations. Please share your stories.)

I got the following responses:

• Rules and standards
• Objectives/purpose/goal
• Code of Ethics
• Work atmosphere
• Social responsibility/ caring
• Listening
• Bureaucracy – Speed of decision making
• Communication
• Preferences and interests
• Hierarchy/ structure
• Shared benefits
• History/ traditions
• Rewarding failures
• Recognizing successes
• Motivation
• Help/ support

Returning to the creating culture for innovation how does one take into account all the above aspects of culture? One can see that it is almost redesigning a corporation for innovation to change the culture. I think it would be a very difficult task. Can we really change the corporate culture for innovation? Or should we focusing on installing process for innovation in a given culture? In the recently concluded Business Innovation Conference, 5 out of 30 presentations were geared towards the ‘culture'.

Sometime ago, I read that a new technology officer of a leading computer manufacturing company has discontinued R&D projects that go beyond 2-3 years. The top 20 or so projects were retained for generating short term revenue. Leadership in other companies have adopted the similar strategy to productize R&D. To an extent I believe R&D must become more business focused, efficient and productive, however, I do not believe R&D should be required to generate revenue in the short term. Instead, R&D organizations must become a source of profitable revenue growth, not only in short term but also in long term. There is a difference between revenue growth and revenue generation

For the sake of next quarter, corporations are forsaking future. First no R&D has been so efficient that it can produce additional revenue in just one or even two quarters. Secondly, their designs have been marginal at best for reproducibility. To accommodate design marginalities manufacturing organizations generally struggle for sometime resulting in wastage of precious time and losing potential competitive advantage. Thirdly, even if the new products are released due to reprioritization, early launchers in most cases cut sales of their own profitable products and causes operating loss due to poor initial profit margin. Hence, the R&D projects prioritized for short-term gain are very unlikely to produce desired results.

While no one would undermine the value of immediate cash flow, we need to continue to invest for long term sustenance. Every major firm must continue to invest in R&D for short term as well as long term. Real challenge is the sensible allocation of R&D investment. The R&D must take a 15 or 20-year perspective, and define a portfolio that would include some research on fundamental (F) discoveries, platform (P) development, derivative (D) products, and create plug-in opportunities for partners to innovate variation solutions (V) on their platform and derivative products. The timeline for F, P, D, V innovations vary from longer term 15 years to on demand in real time. Such breakdown of innovations would allow a sensible allocation of R&D resources. Just totally shutting down the long term research is a very short-sighted strategy, or senseless act. Such acts leave no room for survival, killing any chance for long term competitive advantage. Short term acts are no strategy.

What do my readers think? Any comments, please?

The Boston Consulting Group has released their latest report on innovation, "Innovation 2008: Is the Tide Turning?" As always, the BCG report provides some great insights on the state of innovation in business.

There are plenty of very interesting insights in the report. It is a quick read and definitely worth it. Some highlights of the report are:

• Innovation remains at the top of corporate agendas. Roughly 2/3 of respondents identify innovation among there top three priorities.
  
• However, executive satisfaction with return on innovation is on the decline with only 43% of respondents saying they are satisfied with the financial return on innovation. Yet, there is a disconnect with the top of the executive hierarchy. Chairpersons, CEOs, and president as a group expressed overall satisfaction.
  
• The three biggest impediments to innovation were reports as long development time, risk-averse cultural bias, and difficulty with selection of the right ideas to pursue.

There is a lot of good detail in the report that shed further light on some of the initial observations. Of course, it comes as no surprise that innovation is still a top of mind urgency with companies. With leading companies fending off the multiple challenges of aging products and intellectual property, loss of key expertise due to shifting workforce demographics, new and determined competitive threats from emerging participants in the global economy, and financial pressures of a difficult economic climate, innovation is a necessary element in the prescription for corporate health.

The trend of the past few years showing continued erosion in satisfaction levels with the return on innovation is of great concern. Coupled with the corresponding decline in companies planning on increasing investment in innovation, it suggests that many companies are finding it difficult to establish sustainable innovation programs. Too many companies are spinning their wheels as they find driving their companies out of the mud and muck of accidental innovation to be harder than they first thought.

One clue as to what is behind this can be found in the results of the survey's question about how companies measure innovation success. The top three responses were customer satisfaction, percentage of sales from new products, and overall revenue growth. These are all very important measures of a company's management execution, but they are not necessarily accurate measures of innovation success. Innovation metrics must be both specific and verifiably incremental. (That is to say if your innovation isn't making a measurable difference, what's the point?) Even more to the point is that measures such as new product success ratios and time to market ranked near the bottom of the list.

A quick look at the top three impediments to innovation underscores the importance of good sustainable innovation practice. Systematic innovation shortens development cycles. Innovation best practices reduce and eliminate risks. Sustainable innovation is built upon alignment of innovation with corporate objectives, customer aspirations, congruence with the opportunity space, and maximally leveraging available technology and knowledge—all making optimal idea selection a natural process.

You can find the report here.

[Crossposted from www.InnovatingToWin.com]

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