I posted a commentary on search engine and IFR of a search engine here a while back; as search engine has found a place in my TRIZ examples, I thought of giving a shot to this news article (Google: The party is over) appeared in Fortune recently through another TRIZ interpretation. While I wouldn't state that Google is struggling to find the next innovation, statement like slowing down their core business of search is certainly intriguing me especially when some data points are given by the authors from their research.

What might have been going wrong with them, a very innovative company like Google? While failure like Google Wave is not a measurement to say they are going down, (In fact we all know that in the journey of innovation, you must fail), getting stuck with a conundrum of "search using Google is not the future" is a matter of concern especially if you generate 91% profit through search.

If we can do a simple 9-Windows thinking, considering Search as the system-present, can we see a subtle evolution happening there in the super-system, beyond technology evolution (If it is only technology, Google will certainly catch up) and business model innovation? As said in the article, if 5 years ago, we want a shoe, we will simply Google it, but now I just need to "tweet" or add it in the "what's on my mind" in FaceBook, and you get answers with "human touch"..

The technology enabling these systems (Twitter and FB) aren't great innovation according to me as in the search engine algorithm of Google; then what makes the search engine is not the future for Google? One element I see is the social system evolution as the game changer. What I mean the social system is the ability to have "emotion" in what you are doing like search. It is far better feeling to ask your friend or relative than a machine about something and get answers based on reference-able experiences, and those changes, enabled by platforms like Twitter and FaceBook is the new way in future. Now, could Google have come up with this earlier?

Perhaps yes if they have applied TRIZ trends :)

Well, the trend is that Search engine is transitioning to the super-system not because the current system has reached to its limit, but a newer system (like social system) is emerging faster and is almost outdated the current system. In a scenario like this, what a company like Google should perhaps try to do is to look at the way how in future people will communicate to each other with emotions.

Apart from the "Transition to super-system trend", we can look at other trends like "Increasing degree of ideality" (Try applying this in the super-system) too.

What else do you think Google can apply and come out with the next best search? Remember the "Resources" are aplenty for a company like Google.

I'm at the Queens School of Business First Annual Innovation Summit in Kingston, ON Canada (Friday-Saturday, March 19-20). Over 160 students, faculty and alumni are talking, listening, and being creative about the process of innovation, with a few visiting speakers sprinkled in to stimulate the discussions. Keynote speaker Stewart Beck, Canada's consul general in the San Jose/silicon valley area of the USA, gave a very personal view of innovation, starting with the Grateful Dead (music group, for those of you too young to know...) and the experience of his 4 friends (physical education majors in college, now a London solicitor, an Ottawa dentist, the consul general, and a business school administrator.) His conclusion about the Dead: you don't have to have a technology - you need a good idea and understanding your customers. The Dead only had one song on the top 10 list, but they have a 40 - plus -year history of fanatical followers, a concert and product sales business, and a gigantic business that is seen as non-business. They did it via social networking with the telephone and personal contacts (now a lot easier with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter) but if they hadn't done what they did in the '60's and '70's, it is possible that the technology - based social networks wouldn't have understoon the potential.

More history: in 1985, working with Canadian companies in the US, the model was to help them find a distributor in the US,ke and the entrepreneurs would frequently back off from the relationship, wanting to fine tune the product before introducing it. Now, 25 years later, his observation is that Canadian companies are much more likely to be willing to take the product to market, but they are reluctant to pay local distributors for their services - they want to apply their home culture methods to doing business abroad. This took Mr. Beck into a discussion of the need to innovate business methods as well as innovating products and services. He used the S-curve model, and showed Canada's strength is at the low end (academics applying R&D, developing concepts) and the high end (successful big companies) but with a big gap in the middle where the small companies grow, and the products/services are propagated into the economy. He is observing some slow changes in the Canadian innovation ecosystem - more willingness to take risks, more experimentation in customer relationships and financial structures, more willingness to work on a global level - but he encouraged the university audience to take leadership in all these areas. Beck's personal experiences in China during the scale-up in globalization of production and consumption and in the Silicon Valley on his first assignment in 1985-90 have both strongly colored his views. He compared the traditional Canadian view of bankruptcy to the Silicon Valley view (disaster, vs. something that happens that you learn from) and the traditional Canadian view of international commerce to the Chinese view (something risky to be very careful of, vs. something that is part of everyday operations of the company.)

Beck concluded with a report on Canadian leadership in the game industry, and in the health of the financial industry, and showed the mostly Canadian audience the video that he uses to tell people elsewhere about Canadian innovation (a few shots of Cirque du Soleil as well as green electronics industries and the Vancouver Olympics) to general audience delight.

For the full program, see www.qsbis.com. As always in these travel reports, I report on the sessions that I personally attend, so readers need to rely on the organizers and the program links to the speakers' own sites to learn about the other points of view that were presented at the conference. At Queens, I'm speaking in one of three morning sessions and doing a workshop during of the afternoon sessions, so my report will be more limited than usual. In the first breakout session, Bill Burnett's presentaion "The Foundational Elements for Business Innovation: The Antecedents of Successful Innovation" was filled with charming (true!) anecdotes ranging from Einstein and Feynman in physics to Domino's pizza. His observations on the contradiction between reward and innovation were right on target - he spoke to the business students about all the aspects of business school training that are just wrong when it comes to creating an innovation environment. His concluding technique, the howitzer method, (Ask "How", use wit, call other people "sir" or the culturally appropriate equivalent) is universally applicable as a way of demonstrating the trust and empowerment that are essential foundation elements for innovation. Thanks, Bill!

My first talk about TRIZ (the afternoon talk is a "how to" workshop) got a great crowd. Thanks, QSBIS! Maybe we'll have more TJ and RI readers in Ontario. I met Queens' students and faculty who had TRIZ experience in Germany and in multi-national situations, so I hope that I helped them gain a wider audience.

Stephen Benson from the UK presented both the theory and the reality of open innovation communities. His success with moving from 90/9/1 (joiners who don't participate, those who produce useless contributions, those who produce useful contributions) to 30/30/40 is both impressive and exciting. Innovation Exchange is the particular group he used as his example, but the learning applies to many communities of practice. Benson's discussion of intellectual property in the global, self-organizing communities, and the issues of trust between the customers (generally large companies) who need to reveal their needs to get effective suggestions, and the idea generating teams, who need to reveal enough about the solution to get the customers to pay for an idea, stimulated considerable lunchtime discussion.

Robert Brands used his own experience as a entrepreneur/product developer and his book "Robert's Rules of Innovation" as the basis for his keynote talk. A quick summary doesn't do justice to the depth of Brands' research--see his www.innovationcoach.com site for lots of extracts from the book.

I had a great audience for the afternoon TRIZ workshop--50 people, about 2/3 students in the Queens MBA program, the rest faculty and members of the Ontario business community, with a sprinkling of other speakers. It was a great opportunity to teach some TRIZ skills to people who will be in a position to use them very intensely in the next year. This is a very global group - one student from Germany had extensive TRIZ experience in the automotive industry, a faculty member was a "fan" of the TRIZ Journal, and students came from 8 countries and 3 Canadian provinces.

The concluding plenary talk was by Claude Legrand, "Walking the Talk on Innovation." Claude brought together many of the themes of the day, emphasizing that leadership has to be a daily, physically visible activity to be effective. The day concluded with organizer Jameel Lalji thanking the university, the sponsors, and the 20+ graduate students who pulled the QSBIS together. I hope that "First Annual" is an accurate label, and encourage the innovation community to consider a trip to Kingston next year.

On December 7th this lively panel discussion was hosted on CSPAN by Mathew Bishop, Business Editor of The Economist. The panel of excellent innovators includes: Dean Kamen, Inventor, Segway; Kai Huang, Co-Founder, The Guitar Hero; Rob Carlson, Principal, Biodesic; Dwayne Spradin, President and CEO, InnoCentive.

They shared their thinking about the state of the economy, economic and business innovation, and opportunities for growth. Among the topics they addressed were use of technologies, alternative energy uses, and health care. They also responded to questions from the audience.

For those of you who would like to watch the discussion--50 minutes, here is the link: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/290481-3.

How good is the new Droid phone? I can't tell you that - but I CAN tell you that the premise of an ad I found displaying on CNN.com tonight has me intrigued.

The ad (shown in the static screen grab here) states plainly "Compromise Deactivated." Being on the search for a new cell phone (no decision yet), I've had trouble making a decision based on the compromise factor.

I've dropped my current phone a few times. So much so that I've to using masking tape to keep the battery attached to the phone. Clearly, battery use is important! But it seems like if a battery is reliable, I'm giving up something else - perhaps the smaller size I prefer. Or the price skyrockets. Or it has more functionality than I need/want.

But if I look for a phone that has the functionality I want (easier texting than my Razr provides), good network coverage, bells & whistles not needed (email, videos, etc. are more than I desire to carry with me at all times), then the low battery time is a major complaint within reader reviews.

I don't know if the Droid will be the phone for me, but the idea of no compromises (a fundamental principle of TRIZ - eliminate the contradictions/compromises - in order to develop the innovative solution) has me intrigued enough to continue my research. Maybe even if some of those unneeded features are there, the lack of compromises on the rest of what's important to me will be right up my alley.

The next time you're confronted with a compromise, think about what you can do to eliminate the contradiction entirely - you might be surprised by the ideas that present themselves.

This weekend Real Innovation turned three! It's been a fun, busy, challenging and exciting three years - and I expect nothing less in the next three years.

We've got some new authors joining the Real Innovation family of contributors in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

And to everyone who has contributed to these first three wonderful years - please accept my deepest thanks. The authors, commentators and forum participants each contribute to making this THE online source for systematic innovation methods and tools.

Happy birthday RI!

On Tuesday, November 3rd, Ellen Domb will be a guest on Steve Wilson's Quality Conversations on BlogTalkRadio. Click and listen at 11 a.m. PT to a discussion on "TRIZ Techniques and Their Practical Application."

Ellen is an expert on the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ - an innovation methodology), founding editor of The TRIZ Journal and a frequent author/commentator on Real Innovation and The TRIZ Journal.

The October 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review has a very nice article on what TRIZ calls the use of resources: "The Power of Unwitting Workers." An important part of teaching about the use of resources is explaining that resources are not just things. Energy of any sort, from the system or from the environment, is a resource. Information from the system or the environment, or information generated as a byproduct of a function of the system are all resources. And the obvious resources in the system--the parts of the system, waste materials generated when building the system, etc.

The HBR article has 3 example of using the customer's energy to power the system:

1. The revolving door at a railroad station in the Netherlands turns a generator to power the lights in the train station.
2. Cars in the parking lot at a supermarket in England run over a system of plates. Deflection of the plates engages a flywheel, which runs a generator, producing electricity, AND the system of plates slows the car down, so energy is not wasted on braking by friction.
3. Power-generating floors in the Tokyo Station of the Japan Railway Company use piezoelectric devices to generate electricity--it is not yet at the economically useful level, but shows great promise.

In these cases the customer knows he/she is doing the work, and the company is getting "green" public relations as well as power.

The information examples are more subtle: the customer is aware of doing work for one purpose, but not that the company is getting other benefits.

1. About 10% of the questions on the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test, used for college admissions in many regions) are not really part of the test. The scores aren't used for the test-taker's evaluation. Those questions are used for calibration and for developing future tests. The test-takers act as unpaid information providers.
2. When you use a website with "CAPTCHA" security (they ask you to type in your interpretation of a messy-looking set of letters or numbers) they are not only deciding that you are a human being, and therefore entitled to use that site, they are getting you to help decipher phrases that have caused problems for optical scanners that are putting old books into databases. Last year CAPTCHA users helped trascribe almost 150,000 books.

These information examples are reminiscent of the example I used in my talk at the Computer-Aided Innovation conference (Harbin, China, August 2009). There has been a recent simplification of the method used to measure the speed of vehicles on highways, which is a great example of patterns of evolution, trimming, and use of resources.

A. 1950's Vehicles run over a hose stretched across the road. The pulse of air pressure is recorded to measure the vehicle passage and the time between pulses measures speed.

B. 1970's Both light and sound signals are bounced off the vehicles, and technology borrowed from military radar and sonar systems are used to measure the speed of the vehicles.

C. 2000's Drivers use cell phones while driving. The signals move from tower to tower with the cell, and from cell to cell as the vehicles move. The speed of transfer is the speed that vehicles are moving on the highway. In other words, the drivers give the highway operators the information as a by-product of using the phone. The need for a measuring system goes away (absorbed into the supersystem, in TRIZ-talk). Next phase has already begun--there are cars that receive the date directly into their navigation systems, and integrate it with the GPS, to suggest alternate routes around congested regions.

Do you have a great resource story? Share it with us using the comment feature!

Tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept 30), Ellen Domb, founding editor of The TRIZ Journal, will be on Steve Wilson's show Quality Conversations, hosted by BlogTalkRadio.

Steve has interviewed a plethora of quality professionals in the past. Guest apperances include Tom Kubiak, Forrest Breyfogle, Mark Graban, and from Real Innovation's sister site, iSixSigma, Jessica Harper and Michael Marx.

Below is the promo introducing the show. Check it out tomorrow 8:30 a.m. Pacific.

"Standard quality improvement methodologies such as DMAIC and PDSA have always incorporated brainstorming as a key method for finding creative solutions to problems. Brainstorming is designed to liberate a team's thinking from past patterns and and uncover ideas that people might have unconsciously suppressed. When it works it's great. But what happens when it does not work...if the solution lies outside the experience of the team? Ellen Domb, long time expert on the subject of TRIZ and founder of The TRIZ Journal joins us today to talk about the need for the use of TRIZ in Six Sigma."

A car that is capable of reaching half the speed of a jet cruising at 30K ft... So, we have the world's first fastest production car, Aero costing over half a million dollar available in the Indian market. (My average speed of driving here is 14 kmh and on highway at 55kmph). This recent news here in India tempted me to check out some of the fatest car available and found not just this one, but this entire list.

What is intriguing me is the thinking behind a company manufacturing and the customers buying the fastest car; why would someone buy a car with a speed which normally can be driven only at the Nevada desert or in the Wind tunnel for a "function" (Speed @ 254 mph) they can't normally achieve on the public road other than the initial 0-60 seconds?

I can't force myself to think that any auto company for that matter could have ignored the fact about the road condition, speed limit (legal requirements anywhere in the world, except probably on the Autobahn in Europe), before commercializing. I agree that several of them are iconic brands, and are made to order, and there are customers ready to wait for 6 months after writing a check of this amount.

My question here is, are companies consciously introducing contradictions for some benefit? If yes, what are the benefits? How do company sustain by introducing a contradiction, not the solution?

To make my point little clear, here is a possible contradiction in this particular situation.

- A car that can run at 254mph Vs Road condition to accommodate that speed, legal requirements for driving at this speed

My interpretation on TRIZ terms

- Speed Vs Ease of operations/object affected harmful

What are your thoughts?

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.

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.

The current economic scenario has triggered several discussions on emphasizing an innovation action plan for Obama administration to revitalize the US (and apparently the world) economy. The recent Business Week article by Thomas D. Kuczmarski proposing a step-by-step innovation action plan for Obama is encouraging at this juncture, because the growth of several other countries around the world has been depended on US innovations. An unbiased view of Kuczmarski's plan as an "outsider", and indeed by supporting him for his proposal, the question remaining to me is how the government should rationalize the implementation of this plan when the priority is dealing with the reality at the grass root level problems of unemployment, reduced consumer spending, and over and above the looming negative sentiments leading to a deep recession? Is there a way President Obama can tie the innovation policy to bring the changes immediately that we are looking for, so the action plan for innovation can yield benefit quickly?

In his previous post The 4400, Jack Hipple seeded some excellent thoughts on using the "free resources" effectively. Taking the cue from there, some wild ideas to ponder..

• Setting up micro-venture capital fund to help people at the grass root level for the area they have expertise in. May be it is ok to tax the wealthy more but force them to invest in the new businesses as micro-venture capitalists.
• Encourage the huge pool of unemployed, diversified, experienced group of people (resources) to build their own businesses by providing a federal grant, entrepreneurship support, and tax break(must be better than bailing out the banks). Well, can even infuse creativity by ensuring that there are people coming together from different discipline to build a business.
• Leveraging huge unemployed talent pool to setup private educational institution to educate the future generation. Remember, the future gets hands-on education from these diversified, experienced people if we don't enforce the teachers should have high qualification. to teach. ( Kuczmarski mentioned about training people on innovation)
• For those ready to get their hands dirty; encourage, support (money and other) for the community farming. (Another way to focus on "what is consumed in America is built in America")
• And how about letting the community driving the energy initiatives (especially green) by allowing them to setup their own community based power grid (You don't have to be a nuclear scientist to setup a micro wind turbine). Also inline with Obama's commitment to invest in infrastructures, energy. Clean energy, new jobs..

A thought plane for you to think further; what are your ideas?

If Europe has a dedicated year of creativity and innovation, do other countries/regions need their own? -------------

There's been a lot of talk – particularly since the global recession became a reality – about whether or not government should be involved in innovation.

The European Parliament proclaimed the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009 (EYCI) to focus "on the importance of creativity in private and public life." As nice as that sounds – and as well-intentioned as it likely is – what impact will this "year" have?

They do have a set of defined goals, but they are broad enough that quantifying success will be a challenge. Their ambassadors list is impressive - I hope to find out more about their role (the role of leadership is innovation is critical) and report back here at a later date.

Updated 2/11: BusinessWeek has a new article, "Obama Needs a Secretary of Innovation," – that explores the benefit of having someone in charge of 2 tasks: "The first is to lead a systematic national innovation process, bringing this powerful strategy to bear on the government's role in unclenching the lockjaw of this economic crisis. The second is to create a national innovation mindset, reinvigorating innovation in the private sector." Any discussion of innovation and process makes me happy, but is this a good beginning to making America "innovative"?

Reader Questions: If Europe has a dedicated year of creativity and innovation, do other countries/regions need their own? Are there lessons from the EYCI's initial planning that could be improved upon already? How will you judge their success?

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]

The Mexican TRIZ Association (AMETRIZ) is hosting a blog for ideas to solve the global economic crisis: http://blog.ametriz.com/.

Put that TRIZ (and other innovation methods and tools) experience to good use and submit your ideas. (And share them here, too!)

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.

Booz & Company announced its new Global Innovation 1000 report today –"Beyond Borders." The report focuses on R&D expenses across the globe as a key innovation indicator. Their top 10 companies include: Toyota, General Motors, Pfizer, Nokia, Johnson & Johnson, Ford, Microsoft, Roche Holding, Samsung and GlaxoSmithKline. A few interesting findings:

• "Fully 91 percent of the world's 1,000 largest R&D spenders conduct innovation activities outside the countries in which they are headquartered."
• "Even as the companies based in the U.S. performed $80.1 billion worth of R&D in other countries, companies headquartered elsewhere poured $42.6 billion into R&D conducted in the U.S."
• Three industries make up 70 percent of the R&D - automotive, computing and electronics, and healthcare.

The report can be downloaded as a PDF here: http://www.booz.com/global/home/what_we_think/reports_and_white_papers/ic-display/42809114

What do you think? Do the results surprise you? Are those the companies that come to mind when thinking of innovation? Does R&D have a direct correlation to how innovative a company is? Is there too much outsourcing in innovation?

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.

The 2008 participants represented Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, US, France, and the Mexican states of Veracruz, Jalisco, Nueva Leon, Mexico, Michoacan, Puebla, Queretaro, Distrito Federal, and Tabasco and there have been past participants from Zacatecas and Baja California Norte in Mexico, and Argentina, Brazil, UK, Iraq, Korea, and Spain.

Photo: R. Marin, Z. Royzen and J. Hipple with mariachis at the reception on day 2.

I will continue to report on my observation of the conference, with short notes on the papers. For the complete program, see http://www.ametriz.com/schedule_third_conference_triz.php.

Noel Leon presented the paper that he wrote with Humberto Aguayo Téllez on the use of Genetic Algorithms with TRIZ. The complementary elements of the two methods have been combined into Evolutionary Conceptual Design. Particularly, the use of biological evolutionary mechanisms in genetic algorithms and of technical evolutionary concepts in TRIZ, were particularly fruitful. They found that the two disciplines had developed similar concepts of ideality and the need to abandon trade-offs to reach the ideal final result (using TRIZ vocabulary) The examples that impressed the audience were both concrete and fanciful: The development of a design for a forged steel machine part that meets multiple simultaneous constraints, and the development of a simulated multi-terrain walking robot. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=oquKOVfzGfk&NR=1 to watch the robot learn! (I like when it starts experimenting with jumping instead of walking –TRIZ ideas of using another dimension to solve the problem!) Later in the day Cesar Villareal showed a case study of design of vertical wind turbines using the combination of the genetic algorithms with TRIZ to solve very difficult technical problems that will be essential for energy production.

Edgardo Cordoba presented the work that he did with Angélica Arellano Palacios on the application of TRIZ in human relations. They have worked with individual, management /administrative and cultural problems, and found that TRIZ makes significant and useful contributions in all areas. In particular, organization leaders increased their creativity and demonstrated ideal solutions at a level that had been inconceivable before their use of TRIZ. Tools that were most useful to the leaders were multi-windows, smart little people, and dimension/time/cost. They looked at the leadership dimensions: transactional, transformational, situational, and visionary, and found that leaders need similar skills in all areas, but they need to know how to apply those skills in a flexible way.

Luz Marina Torres Piñeros presented the work she developed with Oscar Fernando Castellanos Domínguez and others at the National University of Colombia. They studied the relationship between "technological intelligence" and the decision making process in countries ranging from Colombia to India to Ecuador to the US. She has extensive data showing how the state of 3 different industries (tobacco, cacao, and finque) improved as the understanding of the system and the technology developed.

Hilda Del Sagrario Vallín Sánchez and her colleagues Sergio Gerardo Mañón Espinon and Álvaro R. Pedroza Zapata from ITESO (Institute for Advanced Study in the West) in Tlaquepaque, a suburb of Guadalajara, showed a detailed case study of innovative development of battery technology through use of multi-parameter designed experiments.

Avraam Serediski is well-known to the TRIZ Journal readers. He participated in two of the projects that were reported at the conference. He and Gabriel González Molina and

Fidel García Gonzalez (who presented the paper) studied >20,000 graduating students from universities, and received surprisingly negative answers to the question of how the students will impact society. They have formulated a plan which is now in active deployment in the state of Puebla, associated with several universities, for entrepreneurship education and for business incubators, to encourage the students and others to work together for new enterprises.

TRIZ Journal readers are familiar with problems in the construction industry. The conference had 3 very exciting papers on the use of TRIZ to solve problems in materials development for construction to improve strength and life of materials and to reduce cost (both for the producer and for the user, and for society by reducing energy costs.)

1. Sergio Uribe from Cemex showed the TRIZ adoption process, and how Cemex is combining TRIZ with training, software, support, and management systems to increase adoption and accelerate project completion throughout the company
2. J. C. Rubio Ávalos and his colleagues at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo and with the support of government agencies used TRIZ for breakthrough improvements in phosforescent concrete, flexible window materials, strong membranes, and inorganic foams. In each case they used very basic TRIZ principles (such as the 40 principles and the separation principles) plus the concept of ideality, to make extreme improvements.
3. Alfonso Moreno Salazar and his colleagues in Guadalajara reported on developments in the use of foam panels for both home and industrial construction. The new techniques make very energy-efficient buildings possible with much less labor and use of raw materials, using classical contradiction resolution, applied in a multi-parameter environment.

Professor Rafael Oropeza Monterrubio both entertained and educated the audience—as the last speaker before lunch he had the challenge of keeping people engaged! His study of the failures of leadership in traditional organizations and his recommendations for structural changes, based on the application of TRIZ to management problems, were very well received.

Laura Ponce Garcia presented an extensive study of the opportunities for improvement in the hospitality industry, mostly focused on hotels, and the many possibilities made possible by the methods of understanding of customers' needs and the use of information technology.

Christian Signoret & Avraam Serediski (Mexico and France) revived one of the TRIZ methods developed in the mid-1980s to increase the Ideality of a system: the Integration of Alternative Systems. The process was illustrated with an agricultural case study and a student project in rocket design. It produces very dramatic results very quickly, if the practioner has a good understanding of the relationships of the functions and subsystems of the system that is being improved.

Guillermo Cortes Robles Institute Technologica in Orizaba, Veracruz, MX, did two presentations on the use of Alternative Failure Determination to increase safety of industrial machinery. They were very elegant case studies, using the resources of the system to solve the problem, once the problem was understood. His data on the need to improve industrial safety made a strong case.

Pedro Sariego P showed 3 cases from the Chilean mining industry The case studies illustrated specific TRIZ methods, with considerable Six Sigma thinking in the identification of the problems:

1. Elimination of a contradiction: How to position the elecrolytic process in the chain of cathodes in hydrometalurgical processing of copper
2. Su-Field analysis: Problem of an elbow in the discharge of a lime production process
3. ARIZ: Removing large rocks that get stuck in the jaws of a crushing machine in a copper processing system.

Javier Rivera Ramírez discussed his work with Rosario Vidal Nadal on methods of managing innovation in an environment where science, technology and design have evolved without always being focused on the needs of the customer, and pointed out possible ways to manage both the people and the processes to enhance innovation.

Edgardo Cordoba's fascinating presentation on the seventh generation of quality, presented as a new paradigm of TRIZ, had much new data that traced the evolution of the quality control, quality improvement, and pro-active quality movements, and suggested that the predictive properties of TRIZ would contribute to the future of quality in many ways.

Day 4 was devoted to tutorials. I did a half-day workshop on how to teach TRIZ, focusing on understanding the learning process before trying to do any teaching. Jack Hipple did a full-day program on the integration of TRIZ with many other tools and methods, and Noel Leon did an intensive half-day session for TRIZ beginners. I missed the party that the 4 organizations that were sharing the Expo center for the week of innovation presented on Saturday night (had to run to the airport) but I hope that this report shows the organizing committee of AMETRIZ that their efforts were appreciated!

Photo: Rafael Fargas, Noel Leon, and keynote speakers Andrew Brown and Mansour Ashtiani.

AMETRIZ (The TRIZ Association of Mexico) changed the dates of the III Congreso Iberoamericano de Inovacion Tecnologica to participate in the inauguration of the new (Magnificent!) Expo conference center of Guadalajara with simultaneous meetings of Universitronica 2008, Creanimax (animation and video games) MexEEDev (Mexico Electronics and Embedded Developers Forum), and honoring the International Week of Learning, Innovation, and High Technology (my translation!)

Because of the date change, I was unable to participate in Day 1. Zinovy Royzen's tutorial on the TOPS method of function analysis had 50 very active participants in the morning, who then learned to apply TRIZ to processes in Edgardo Cordova's tutorial in the afternoon.

Day 2 is the plenary session, which opened with greetings from the officials of the state of Jalisco, the conference center, and the organizers. We were represented on the podium by Rafael Farga, the local organizer of the Congreso. Thanks to Rafael, and to Noel Leon and Edgardo Cordova who organized the technical program, for a great meeting. As always in these commentaries, this will be a personal report—if readers want the full program, see http://www.ametriz.com/schedule_third_conference_triz.php. The conference proceedings will be available for purchase from AMETRIZ after the conference.

Randall Marín, Senior Test Engineer from Intel in Costa Rica delivered the kickoff speech for our session. He presented the history of the semiconductor industry and Intel's place in the industry, and the development of TRIZ at Intel. This is the same story that Amir Roggel has presented to audiences in Japan, the US and Europe, but Randall made it fresh with new stories from the Intel user conferences--applications of TRIZ to solve problems and to prevent problems in the most stressing manufacturing environment now in use. Randall's slide show tour of the Costa Rica Innovation Center made a lot of people jealous—a great environment for TRIZ, both the physical place and the problem-solving orientation of the culture. The match between the Intel culture and the TRIZ emphasis on removing problems, not just making trade-offs has helped TRIZ propagate rapidly throughout the manufacturing sector of the company.

Photos: Marin, Hipple, Royzen, Brown

Jack Hipple is well-known to the TRIZ Journal and Real Innovation audiences. His talk on "Parallel Universes" got the audience involved in several case studies. He showed how the air traffic control display developers greatly improved the ability of a controller to notice a bad situation in time to do something about it (hey, this is important to me—I'm a pilot and a passenger!) by studying what is done in chemical plant control systems, nuclear power control, and computer game design. Jack's illustration of the key skill of translating jargon into general language, so that you can look for the parallels in other technological "universes" was both helpful and entertaining. Thanks, Jack!

Mansour Ashtiani is the President of the Altshuller Institute for TRIZ Studies and the TRIZ advocate at the Delphi company. He gave the audience a very concise history of the development of TRIZ and the work of the Altshuller Institute to promote TRIZ, and suggested some future North-America wide collaboration with AMETRIZ.

Margarita de la Fuente y Xavier Gonzalez is an expert in many areas of innovation, including the de Bono and Goldratt thinking systems. Today she talked about the process of administration of innovation programs in business, based on the experiences that she and her co-authors have in the food and food processing industries (KFC, Frito-Lay, Nabisco and other big brands.) A key finding from their study is that organizational culture and organizational alignment are essential to innovation, seen as 2 legs of a stool. The third, essential leg, is the realization that innovation applies to all aspects of the company—service and product delivery, production, business processes, understanding non-users as well as users, regulatory requirements, and many others.

Zinovy Royzen gave an abbreviated paper on the TOP model, which he introduced several years ago and has continued to develop. (TOP= Tool, Object, Product) and showed how to use it to define problems. He injected much interesting historical information about the development of function analysis in TRIZ by many researchers (other than Altshuller). Zinovy's case study on the transformer was a great introduction to the idea of trimming, both for experienced practioners and beginners alike.

I presented my new thinking on teaching TRIZ to beginners (to be published in the TRIZ Journal in December—be patient). What's new? It isn't about TEACHING—it is about LEARNING. And while many of us are teachers, all of us are learners, so learning about how people learn will help everybody. Good news, TRIZ is right: somebody someplace has already solved this problem, and I bring a lot of education research together and show how to apply it to TRIZ learning.

Concluding speaker of the day was Dr. Andrew Brown from Delphi, who has been a spectacularly popular speaker at TRIZCON meetings, and who is a member of several international study commissions on the future of the transportation industry. The audience left in a state of high excitement about the future of transportation, the future of technology, and the future of the world.

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