Commentary by Praveen Gupta

Leaders in European Union, India, China, USA and many other countries have been asking for more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) graduates in order to drive more innovation. We also know that there are unemployed STEM professionals. Simply training more STEM professionals may add to the pool of unemployed STEM professionals. Is STEM education necessary and sufficient condition for innovation?

I do notice that many new concepts and technologies are developed by many STEM professionals with Ph.D. level education. Most of these discoveries are for long term benefits. I also notice many STEM graduates with BS and MS level education doing rote jobs, and are unable to contribute their intellectual best. There are many Ph.D. graduates, who have not discovered a whole lot, and there are many BS and MS educated professionals who have innovated very successfully. There are even college dropouts who turned out to be some of the most successful innovators and entrepreneurs. The question arises, "Is STEM education enough for driving innovation?"

Around 2003, I came across the opportunity to learn moe about innovation. During my interview with Bob Galvin for my book Business Innovation in the 21st Century, he mentioned that when he was asked by one of his professors to think of creative ideas, he had no idea how to think creatively. As an educator and consultant, teaching innovation was my main purpose of my first book on innovation because I observed that most creative solutions or products introduced by STEM or non-STEM professionals failed in the field as evidenced by success rate of new products.

I have also experimented with teaching creativity to people ranging from 10 years to about 70 years of age, and have found similar potential for innovation. It is great to see beautiful minds in action because they all manifest unique attributes. In an interview with Sir Harold Evans, the author of They Made America, I learned that he agrees with the concept of education in innovation because innovators possess special innovation skills irrespective of their education, STEM or no-STEM.

I believe STEM education needs be supplemented with education in innovation in knowledge economy. We must consider STEM plus. What do you think?

Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI), a consortium dedicated to the development and implementation of a more sustainable system for designing, producing, remanufacturing, and recycling electronic devices at Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign is hosting the second annual symposium. John Pflueger, Principal Environmental Strategist at Dell, was the keynote speaker on the first day. Additional speakers included William Hoffman, UL Environment, Andrew Steckl, University of Cincinnati, Charles Newman, ReCellular, Courtney Rushforth, City of Urbana, Bill Olson, Motorola, Manish Mehta, National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, and Alex Lobos and Callie Babbitt, Rochester Institute of Technology. I also presented at the symposium bringing a different perspective to the sustainability initiative, emphasizing modular architecture, and consumer designs in an open source software and hardware environments.

There was a significant discussion about recycling and certifications for energy savings at the symposium. Willie Cade, CEO of PC Rebuilders and Recyclers even started an interesting discussion about the definition of 'waste' that can be a relative term as ones waste could be other's profit through repurposing or reusing. Thinking in more general terms, I personally realized that electronics waste is a state of material that should be considered for its transformation into next state through better planning, designs and consumer behaviors.

Topics included environmental toxicology, life cycle analysis, product design, existing and proposed policy, and more. Designers, electrical engineers, chemists, materials scientists, electronics manufacturers, recyclers, refurbishers, and remanufacturers, government representatives and policy makers, pollution prevention technical assistance providers, relevant non-profit organizations and others are present at this symposium.

It is interesting to note that many recycling and refurbishing operations are innovatively repurposing electronics waste. However, we need more pro-active approaches deployed by OEMs to reduce eWaste through well thought-through product portfolios. I would love to hear readers' views on reducing eWaste.

There is a global desire to exploit innovation for gaining competitive advantage, and a significant effort to deploy innovation without knowing how to. Most business colleges are still pursuing entrepreneurship programs without much education in innovation. Recognition of need to teach innovation is becoming apparent but slowly. I am surprised that more academic and corporate resources have not been allocated to developing teachable innovation concepts, method, tools, measurements and management.

I have been teaching innovation for about five years. Ed Coates a Master Business Innovator will start teaching a course on innovation in healthcare in Pennsylvania. A university on West Coast killed the whole concept of innovation center before the course could even start. A couple of community colleges are also teaching Business Innovation course. I sense that activities for teaching innovation increasing however not sufficient action taken to make any visible impact.

European Union (EU) has recently released a report on Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative, Innovation Union. The report highlights need for getting more innovation out of its research. Innovation Union has made some commitments such as by the end of 2011, Members States should have strategies in place to train enough researchers to meet their national R&D targets. It still appears that there is a lack of resources committed to understand how the innovation works, or advancing science and engineering of innovation. In absence of a clear understanding of the innovation process, strategies are just a text.

I believe teaching or learning innovation must be the first action item to initiate any innovation journey by any organization, including a national or EU like Government. Without education in innovation it is like driving a car without learning how to drive and the driver's license. The risk of accidents is very high.

It is time we recognize that the right way to deploy innovation must be through education in innovation in addition to education in math, science, technology and engineering. We must recognize the paradigm that innovation is a learned skill, not a gift to some! Everyone can become a better and faster innovator through education, practice and networking.

I would love to hear what is your organization doing about educating employees in innovation in order to accelerate and sustain profitable growth and create jobs.

The morning Keynote session was scheduled for 8:30, and I walked in at 8:15 and met the planned speaker, Steve Shapiro. Steve immediately was friendly and quickly talked about his three weeks on the road, the components of the Human Brain, how kids' can freely play until we adults spoil it, and about water proof paper to use in the shower in case you get an idea. Clearly a free thinker with a big sense of Humor!

Steve is the Vice-President of Strategic Consulting for InnoCentive and the Author of "24/7 Innovations". Once Introduced by Praveen Gupta, Steve started his talk. He said "I am not big on slides" and "I have 3 points of view, 3 quotes, and two pictures!" He asked the audience to define innovation and received responses. Steve makes the point that Innovation is a response to an event or problem. Adaptability is very important and you need to have a portfolio of challenges, then determine which matter the most, and then go fix them.

Steve then talked about several types of Innovation:

- Open Innovation where outside resources are used and leveraged and Inside Innovation within an organization using their methods, people, and tools. An example of the BP spill website was used for Open Innovation. Ideas were asked for and entered on a website. BP received 80,000 suggestions of which they evaluated 20,000. Of the 20,000 only a handful of ideas were feasible. Steve tied this to the "Signal to Noise" ratio in Audio equipment. It's how many good ideas you get out of all the ideas. So an idea system can be quickly overloaded. Steve then carefully talked about the importance of phrasing the question so that solutions become higher quality.

An exercise was done with the audience. Steve pulled out a foam brick and asked "what can you do with a brick? And people stated with a range of random suggestions, "use it in your patio, throw it, fix a table that rocks, etc." Steve then asked the audience to pair up and use the brick example, but to have the first person in the pair bring up a random item that the brick would be used with, then after several minutes switch and have the other person do the same. My partner was given "refrigerator" and then he rattled off ideas for the brick like "hold up a broken shelf, separate items on a shelf, prevent a bottle from rolling, and so on. Steve polled the audience and all clearly felt their most creative ideas were in the second case where a connection is made between the brick and a random item.

Steve concluded by showing several product examples that used this approach and then answered questions. An enlightening and fun keynote for all.

Next there were breakout sessions. I attended "What's Constraining Your New Product Growth" by Mike Dalton, Managing Director and Chief Innovation Coach for the Guided Innovation Group. He is also the author of "Simplifying Innovation".

Mike indicated that companies spend 30% of their net income (3% - 5% of total) on Research and Development and they expect a return. To do that Mike introduced the "Guided Innovation System TM" as a framework for innovation improvement. The system is based on the Theory of Constraints and seeks to find and eliminate the constraint or bottleneck. Mike summarized a 5 step process to resolve any constraint in the Product Development process. Those steps were Identify, Exploit, Subordinate, Elevate, and then start Again.

In the First step Mike suggested that you process map your Innovation process. It should also be measured on Sale Throughput and Cycle Time. Focus on the constraints that offer the most leverage.

In step 2, Exploit some key points were to: Only allow the best opportunities into the innovation pipeline. In the top 20% performing companies Mike has worked with, only 1.1% of their innovation projects were cancelled after all the detailed design work was done. In the remaining 80%, on average, 19% of their projects are canceled after the detailed design. Also, clearly understanding what the Customer is hiring you to do and seeing how your Innovation helps them increase sales throughput, working capital, or reduces expenses and what is that value to the Customer. Then run it through your company's financial model.

Step 3 Subordinate; engage the rest of the organization to get the most help on the Innovation bottleneck. Step 4 Elevate; add capacity to your constraint. Suggestions included hiring top talent, training, and development of the Innovation Team. Also using open innovation methods are useful. And finally, Start again â€" continually use the steps to evaluate your Innovation Process.

Overall, Mike summarized a very useful and systematic approach to evaluating and improving an Innovation Process.

The next Keynote was with Chris Galvin CEO Harrison St. and former CEO of Motorola. Chris was introduced by Martin Swarbrick, CEO of Bison Gear. The presentation was titled "A Business History: The Galvins"

Chris sited Devotion to Innovation, Leadership, and Culture a primary drivers and motivators for him and his Father and Grandfather. They had a goal of creating 1 â€" 2 new industries each decade. This was confirmed in a review of 75 years of history. Starting with several failures at Galvin Manufacturing and then succeeding with the first car radio. Other firsts included the portable two way radio, key semiconductors, paging, automotive controls, the cellular phone, Six Sigma, and the first Malcolm Baldrige award.

Chris talked about the importance of the CEO investing in innovation and that complexity and diversity in innovation are your friends. If it's easy, all your competitors will do it. Innovation includes surprises, volatility, requires patience, and you have to have an Innovation Culture.

Chris talked much about the importance of People and that Culture is the application of Principles and Values. A company must be highly principled and the Galvin's wanted to grow the future. A phrase Chris used was "Identify the impossible and make it possible".

Finally Chris talked about how the performance of Motorola was up until his departure, how the culture that was there has been removed and changed and contrasted the performance of Motorola since the Galvin era was gone. Quite a dramatic financial change to the negative, not to mention the many jobs lost.

Chris finished by talking about "Trust" and "Essence" and took many questions from the audience. From my perspective and that of other attendees, a great presentation and discussion was seen.

The final session I attended was "Relationship Capital: Accounting for your Success" by Rob Peters, Principle Leader, Banking and Financial Services Business, Development Global Direct Services.

Rob talked about a project he is involved with where using a Social Networking tool to profile yourself and your team. A profile can be completed and you can also work to complete a certification on relationships. The profile will account for others in your network for your meeting commitments and their perceptions. This important information can be used for improving yourself in work or social groups to perform effectively.

Rob talked about seven principles that are used including: Accountability, Boundaries, Honesty, Respect, Responsibility, Support, and Trust. Each of these principles were touched on and are core to the future of an Interconnected Social Network environment that we will be living in or are already in.

Rob supplied information on the Relationship Networking Industry Association and www.RNIA.org. An interesting and futuristic presentation that had me thinking differently.

John Forsberg is 25 year veteran of the Quality Engineering and Management Fields as well was a ten year Leader in the Customer Service, Technical/Sale Support functions. John is an ASQ Certified Quality Engineer, a senior member of the ASQ, and a certified Six Sigma Black and Green Belt.

There will always be a need for creating jobs. Governments around the world are looking into ways for creating jobs. President Barack Obama held a Jobs Forum like meeting at White House in December, 2009. I read that $5000 per new hire was offered to corporations. It sounds like that everyone expects to buy jobs from somewhere, get them by waving a magic wand, imagine them through an elegant strategy, or hope to energize inspire people through eloquent speeches. Creating jobs takes work. Foundation of the current jobs was created by earlier generations through sheer hard work and creativity.

One thing for sure businesses create jobs, and people create businesses. Shouldn't our focus be then creating new businesses instead of creating jobs? We should plan for a number of new businesses to replace lost jobs and more for maintaining even certain level of employment. Government should develop a policy for, let's say, creating a million new businesses at a specified rate, then appoint a champion for achieving the goal. Businesses make our nation strong. This would require mobilizing people and it is the job of leadership.

I believe we should empower our unemployed friends with education in innovation and entrepreneurship, reward them for creating new ventures, support their new businesses, and collaborate with them to create new jobs. I see this as a more viable approach than merely talking about creating jobs.

What do you think? Love to hear readers' comments.

After years of talking about innovation there is insufficient progress in deploying innovation in organizations around the world. There are tools and methods to gain new skills but a framework needed for deploying innovation in an organization is still missed. Learning from standardization practices, I feel we must develop a maturity model for deploying innovation. I have developed a Business Innovation Maturity Model (BIMM) to assess the innovation maturity level of an organization. BIMM consists of the following five levels:

I. Sporadic Innovations level is the initial awareness level with pockets of innovations and excitement

II. Idea Innovations level is launching the organization-wide innovation initiative to engage employees the idea management process. Excellence in idea management is a critical step in sustaining innovation.

III. Managed Innovations level is focused on deployment of innovation in developing products, services or solutions for achieving profitable revenue growth.

IV. Nurtured Innovations level is to institutionalize innovation in all departments for processes, projects, activities, functions, business model, or supply chain innovations.

V. Sustained Innovations level is for managing innovation deployment to achieve profitable growth continually.

Center for Innovation Science at the IIT School of Applied Technology is developing assessment tool to help corporations on their innovation journey.

How is your corporation pursuing innovation deployment? Tell us.

About two years ago, I wrote a commentary on teaching innovation as it has been my passion to pursue, source of inspiration, and reason to develop teachable innovation methods. About the same time I also started teaching Business Innovation. Students have loved learning about innovation.

Among all the commentaries I have written during 2007- 08 at RealInnovation, the Teaching Innovation has been the most active one. . Many inquiries were received for emailing the course syllabus that I teach at Illinois Institute of Technology. Having fulfilled all requests, I have yet to hear from most of the people who asked for the information. I have no idea what happened after they received the syllabus. Has anyone started teaching innovation? Are there any challenges experienced in teaching innovation? I would be very interested in learning more about various programs initiated or designed for teaching innovation. I believe all of us would benefit from our collective wisdom.

Continuing my work on teaching innovation, IIT has developed an innovation certification program. Maybe, we should create a group on RealInnovation to raise awareness to teaching innovation. I believe new jobs can only be created, or standards of living be raised by creating new businesses based on new discoveries. To achieve these objectives we need to prepare a larger pool of innovators that can only be accomplished by teaching innovation.

What do you think? I need to hear more voices about teaching innovation besides hearing myself.

I took some time off writing commentaries for RealInnovation about a year ago. Reflecting over last 12 months for innovation activities, I have seen great interest in innovation all over the world. People are talking about innovation at all levels. Students, teachers, schools, colleges, businesses, professionals, and even national leaders, all have been talking about innovation. However, creating a culture of innovation at a group, community or corporation level still remains a challenge. There is no shortage of strategic planning for innovation however executing the strategy still remains a mystery.

In December 2009 President Obama hosted a Jobs Forum at White House. Everyone is talking about creating jobs, but none is asking the question, "How to create jobs?" It has been forgotten that more people are employed by small businesses than large corporations. Doling out money to large organizations in the name of "too big to fail" will not create jobs. Stimulus packages worth about three trillion dollars have not created many jobs so far.

I believe that instead of talking about creating jobs our leaders should explore creating new businesses. Only thousands of new businesses will create millions of new jobs. I understand that some of the stimulus money goes for workforce development where the money is available for skills development through training or certification that will help in getting a job, Given that economy is shrinking and jobs are not available; any training for teaching innovation and entrepreneurship does not get funded.

I have been wondering when President Obama would do something about his promise of Change and give a vision for Americans to pursue.

I am sure you have your story to tell. I can hardly wait to hear your innovation story.

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?

Recently, I came across the Invisible Employee book written by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. I read some statistics such as 25% of employees being driven to tears and 50% being verbally abused. My experience has taught that almost 100% feel under appreciated for their work, and their innovative ideas ignored for better of the company. When a company struggles, talented ones are always let go first.

Most companies have goals for employee productivity, quality level, profit, and sales. Recently, one of the leading consulting companies recommended a new measurement that is profit per employee. Given that leadership is not tuned to the voice of employees, performance measures are always set for employees.

Every employee in an organization is an innovator, and possess the potential to contribute innovatively. But, employee ideas, intelligence and successes are noticed miserably. We are living in an ever changing technology rich environment led with the never changing old management principles. Employees are treated as headcounts, rather than counted on for their head. Technology decisions are made by the non-technology leaders without employee inputs, and non-technology decisions are avoided for the risk of failures. Today CEO works like an employee, and expects employees to act like a CEO. These days roles of employees are confounding, and their wings of knowledge clipped.

When a business faces problems, I see executives are overly busy trying to solve problems, and visible everywhere, and employees want to be invisible. They miss the opportunity to capitalize on invisible employee brains to innovate solutions that would immensely help the organization in tough times.

I wish that leaders believe more in their employees, and their unlimited hidden talents to innovate new solutions. Employees are challenged to make money in short term, instead of working on the priority projects for profitable growth. In the fast changing environment, we need to pay attention to demanding customers, and hidden talents of employees to deliver responsive solutions to the customer demands.

I wonder if any of my readers has felt ignored and discouraged at the workplace, or missed the opportunity to innovate a new solution using ones hidden talent. If yes, let's talk. .

Corporate leadership understands innovation is important for success, employees understand how to innovate, and innovation occurs in every business. However, the extent and rate of innovation have been insufficient. I believe that following seven killers innovation suppress our innovation instincts:

1. Harmful Vocabulary – Words such as ‘used to, ‘hate it, ‘shut up,' and ‘why' have been used since childhood to discourage innovative thinking. The ‘used to' implies resistance to change, ‘hate it' is to demoralize a person, ‘shut up' is a personal attack on the innovator, and ‘why' is to discourage from trying something new..

2. Standardizes Tests – SAT and ACT like standard tests promote rote test taking skills, and do not test for or encourage true learning. Individuals conforming to the norms succeed and have no reason to be innovative.

3. College Education and Grading System – Many college courses are taught in a crowd with a little interaction, require standard assignments, and promote regurgitation of the outdated material. Then these students are graded according to their test taking skills. Grading may make teaching easy, but limits learning. Teaching without grading generates in learning, a prerequisite for innovation..

4. Group Thinking – Studies have shown that conventional group thinking methods are not suitable for innovation. Experience shows in a typical brainstorming session, only about 20-30% of attendees participate actively, while others remain passive. Instead of group thinking and fragmented execution, innovation requires grouped-individual innovative thinking, and networked execution.

5. Subject Expertise – Mastery of a subject poses a dilemma. On the one hand domain expertise is a necessary requirement for innovation, on the other hand expertise has an adversarial impact due to associated baggage – I know!

6. Focused – Similar to expertise, too much focus on one thing can limit free or diverse thinking and experience, inhibiting innovative thinking.

7. Too Busy – Most companies hire the best and brightest, and give them a little time to think. The highly qualified employees are kept busy fighting fires generated by rushed management decisions such as launch of new products, or shipment of products in an unrealistic time.

The above list can be expanded by you. If you have experienced an innovation killer, share it here.

How can a small business benefit from innovation? Can small business afford innovation? How can innovation help small business grow revenue, and how quickly? These are some of the most frequently asked questions about innovation.

I believe most of the innovation talk is about large businesses benefitting innovation, ignoring the fact that small businesses are a very significant part of the business community in terms of revenue, employment, and opportunities for innovation. Looking from outside, and having worked inside businesses of all sizes, I can tell it is very difficult to move a mountain or roll it over, vs. a rock, or a pebble. One can see that it is relatively easier to be innovative with small businesses, but challenge is its justification. Small businesses tend to be more innovative as they work with fewer resources, are more agile due to fewer layers and reduced organizational complexity, and are more adaptive than larger organizations. However the challenge remains that a smaller company cannot grow like Wal-Mart in billions of dollars, and does not have billions of dollars like Google to invest in innovation.

That leads us to sizing innovation. Smaller businesses tend to focus on Variation type of innovations rather than fundamental innovations as the small businesses supply to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), or when small businesses are OEMs then they are not dealing with the volume of the larger businesses. The fact remains that purpose of innovation is the same for any business irrespective of its size that is to realize profitable growth.

To achieve the profitable growth, the company must identify opportunities to develop new solutions, be products or services. To identify opportunities for revenue growth, leadership must recognize its position in the market place, listen to its customers, understand suppliers' capability, and utilize its employee's intellectual potential. Benchmarking for knowing position in the industry, Kano's model for listening to customer requirements, value-based partnership for suppliers' capability, and the management process for employee ideas are some of the tools to deploy. Evaluation of various ideas for revenue growth, feasibility of the solution, resources, and capability to commercialize are critical factors for creativity to become innovation. There must be a formula that is suitable for the industry, and customized for the company to evaluate revenue potential of the solution in the available market segment. One must be realistic in assessing the market potential.

Half the solution to revenue growth is realized once the opportunities to grow revenue are identified. Rest of the innovation process must include steps for developing innovative solutions quickly, be able to produce and reproduce, and optimize in operations to minimize waste. In order to convert solutions into cash, one can learn from Microsoft's model of partnerships with potential customers, distributors, or resellers. In other words, strong marketing and utilizing multiple channels to commercialize its solutions have been Microsoft's secret to rise from its early beginnings, similar to any small business.

Finally one must remember a small business can not afford to take the same amount of time to develop its innovation. Small businesses must innovate faster than the larger businesses, and must innovate for now rather than for future.

If you would like to share your ideas about innovation in small businesses, please comment.

I met Wayne Rothschild about three years ago at a Kellogg Innovation Network meeting. We both were consultants and were looking around for contacts. We connected. He told me had 55 patents and I had just completed development of innovation framework. I wanted to network with him to validate my innovation framework, and he wanted some value through collaboration. We came to know each other better, and collaborated.

Searching for a topic for this column, I thought let me give him a call and see what he was up to. I knew he had developed a product that he has been aggressively marketing. I asked for an interview, and Wayne graciously granted. Here is what I learned.

Wayne Rothschild, President and Founder of Neat-Oh! International, LLC (www.neat-oh.com) is an accomplished senior executive, businessman and engineer. He has consistently invented highly successful breakthrough products that have caused dramatic changes to industries. As a kid, he had a goal to have one patent. Once he started working for Craft he worked towards getting his first patent. After getting his first patent, he right away set his eyes on getting ten patents. It took him 27 years to get his first 10 patents, but another six years to receive his 50th patent. Wayne was becoming addicted to innovation and patents.

With all the years of experience, Wayne recognized that foundational patents are lot more valuable. He recited that the purpose of filing a patent is to gain limited benefit from ones patents, and then educate the world about the new knowledge. Wayne says that his desire to solve problems in unique ways drives him to be innoholic, who is always intoxicated by innovative thinking. He learned that more distinct the solution the higher price the solution commands.

Wayne has benefitted from his innovation experience directly and indirectly. Working in a large corporation, the direct benefits are minimal of ones innovation. Wayne says it is understandable because organizations transform a new mouse trap into cash. Simply designing a new mousetrap is not enough. It takes resources to generate sales.

A high tech innovator, now running a toy company, Wayne is amazed at his own innovation journey. He used his prior knowledge, but end up developing a low tech solution. The joy comes from solving an age old problem of cleaning up after playing toys, putting the toys in the toy box. So, his son, Max and Wayne designed toy boxes that become toys themselves, eliminating the need for putting them back in the toy box. He has already helped his son get a jump start by having a patent at the tender age of ten years!

After making his toy reproducible, Wayne had an option of selling toys at a large volume by selling his patent to a larger toy manufacturer, or continuing with low volume by selling himself. According to Wayne, once a large company buys or licenses it, a manager is assigned who has no personal interest, and if the toy does not work it would be canned. But by building his own business, setting his sales channels, dealing with customers, and selling at a low price he sells the products over a longer period of time. Recently, he sold his first millionth toy. That's an innovation!

So, what is the lesson learned? According to Wayne Rothschild, innovate but focus on commercialization. In other words not only innovate what customer may love to have, but also push its sales passionately. Otherwise, it would be no fun!

Have you worked on a successful innovation, or with the innovator who has been able to make his creative solution sell well? Tell us about it. I am sure readers would love to hear about it world over.

Recently, I asked a group of students to raise their hands if they thought they were creative. I saw about 20% raising their hands that they were creative. To validate my understanding I asked them to write at least one creative idea. Again, I discovered that about 20% of them wrote create ideas. I wondered what happened to my understanding that everyone is creative. Looking at their body language, I felt that they just could not try hard enough to think. I did confirm that ‘thinking' appears to be the hardest thing to do, and we do not think naturally productively unless we force ourselves to think. Once we get used to thinking, we become fast thinkers otherwise simply thinking is tough thing to do.

Then, I listed the following steps for thinking creatively:

1. Force yourself to think
2. Observe objects and things around you for their uniqueness and creativity
3. Combine two or more things into a new idea

Again, gave them 5 minutes to write one creative idea. I asked participants again to raise their hand if they had written a creative idea. This time, about 90% of them raised their hands. Without evaluating extent of their creativity, it showed to me that they took the first step towards thinking creatively, i.e., just think.

I feel that we do not like to think unless we really have to. In order to force ourselves to think, everyone needs to create a setting that makes one think and try to go into that setting frequently. Going into that setting could be any or many factors such as challenge, fun, necessity, marching order, care, learning, or curiosity.

Once a person learns to think creatively, then the next challenge is to think creatively fast. It takes a lot of ideas to filter it down to one that scores a home run. It means one needs to practice combining many many things into unique way, and evaluate for their utility and perceived value. Thinking continually and fast are first symptoms of a person becoming an innovative person.

If anyone can think of some simple way to think creatively, I would love to learn more about it. Tell us!

Writing for realinnovation.com makes me look around for new ideas to write about. It occurred to me that my neighbor, who a few years ago showed me a charger for cell phone was also working on a spa system for last two years, made me an offer to take the Aerobic Spa bath. Reluctantly, I agreed. I thought let me see how he evolved from a less than a pound heavy charger to 400 pound aerobic spa equipment. I thought I might like to look at the work of an innovator. After I took the bath in his Aerobic Spa, I loved its benefits. Before I talk more about it, let me tell you the story of this innovator.

Jim McGinley, the innovator has worked for more than 20 years in electronics in manufacturing, marketing, and management. At some point Jim accepted the early retirement package, and started his venture along with his partner Don Rimdzius, who is an electrical engineer, and holds the MBA. Don has experienced in working with large projects. Jim and Don decided to create something new. So, they make a list of ideas or potential projects related to better power utilization. As use of cell phone has been growing exponentially, the market opportunity led to the development of a Travel Charger. Two years of labor led to the development of the Travel Charger. They built prototype, and demonstrated to several large potential customers, the big OEMs like Motorola. Working with large customers appears to be very attractive due to the size of its order, but difficulty of getting a lucrative contract can turn out to be very discouraging. Jim and Don just waited and waited for a large customer's contract, and eventually put the Travel Charger on hold. This situation, however, did not dampen his innovation drive.

While at home, Jim knew his Mom had tried to develop an aerobic bath to address her health issues. It did not appear to be working well, so Jim and Don decided to work on developing the Aerobic Spa. They learned about various methods, and invested significant capital again and developed the Aerobic Spa. It has actually three parts, the Bath Chamber, the Controller, and the Filter.

After taking a bath successfully, I became curious about how these two guys who first were working on a $25 charger quickly switched $50,000 Aerobic Spa. Such a difference between two innovations, I wanted to know the secret. I understood that it took a lot of investment, a lot of sacrifice, and then a lot more effort in marketing and selling. The day I interviewed them, they heard from a large OEM to evaluate the Travel Charger, and also are about to get the first order for Aerobic Spa.

Like any innovator, the bigger challenge than creating new products is to market and sell. Jim and Don have been marketing their innovations through Internet, Sales Reps, Advertising, and the word of mouth. When I heard about aerobic spa, I tried it out, and I loved it. I have already introduced it to many of my friends. I know how it feels like to be an innovator who has to build his customer base one customer at a time. Estimating thousands of customers in the business plan never works.

If you know an innovator, or have experience in making innovations work, tell us.

While going to India for participating in the convocation events at IIT, Chicago's Bangalore campus, I was supposed to travel from Chicago to Newark, and then catch the international flight to Delhi. Due to the size and cost associated with the international flights they are rarely canceled. Same, however, is not true for domestic travel. Canceling domestic flights appears to be an employee's play at major airlines. Chicago is known for surprising weather conditions; my flight to Newark was delayed beyond catching the international flight to Delhi. Seeing the opportunity to participate in a business event evaporating in the freezing conditions, I asked the customer service supervisor to find a way to get me to Delhi. Being a frequent traveler, I should not have expected anything beyond a standard answer anyway. So, I did get the standard answer, "All flights were oversold. Sorry!" After canceling my reservation at the gate, I rushed to the ticket counter and made a plea to endorse my flight with another airlines from Chicago to Delhi, as that would be the only way I could go and attend my events. I was told that the ticket agent could not override decision made at the gate by a supervisor there. However, if his manager approved, the agent could work with. I quickly asked for the manager, and luckily the manager turned out to be the nice person. He said he had no problem if the agent could find one seat for you at any airlines.

Jugad (Joo gaard) Technology

It turned out the agent happened to be from Indian subcontinent. He was glad to help me get to Delhi, and promised he would apply the Jugad. I have heard this word before in Hindi, but never gave any significance to it. Now, it was going to help me, I paid attention. Jugad means really a combinatorial play acted out by street smart people for quickly solving a problem. Sales guys are very good at creating combinations that can sell. If one does not fly, the other one is promptly lands in front of the customer. Comedians call it improvisation. It is to come up with new funny lines by putting two or more unrelated things together. Any unique combination of two or more things is called Jugad, or simply the creativity.

When the ticket agent said, let me do the Jugad, he must have meant let me be creative to find a flight for me to Delhi. To my amazement, he found a seat on a overbooked flight at the other airlines, that too non-stop to Delhi from Chicago instead of going to Newark, NJ. I thought, WOW! Jugad works! It really meant creativity on demand works! Customers love it.

During my stay in India, I tried to understand better what Jugad meant to people in India. I understood that when resources are limited, an optimum solution has to be found, Jugad (creativity) must be applied. Even TRIZ says that when conflicting situation exists, inventive problem solving methods must be practiced. In India, even with a growing economy, resources are limited for a common citizen to meet their daily needs. When people have to struggle to survive they must think differently, must practice Jugad.

Similarly, in business world, when organization has to succeed in order to survive, it must encourage Jugad, i.e., employee creativity at all levels. I have identified Fundamental, Platform, Derivative, and Variation types of innovation in my earlier articles or columns here. Jugad is more like Variation type of innovation, where one must find an innovative solution quickly through combinatorial play. This requires ability to process information fast either mentally or using technology.

One of the example that is cited often in India of Jugad technology is a vehicle people have come up to meet their transportation needs. A common entrepreneur puts together an engine of a tractor, frame of a bullock cart, look of a vintage American car, and cover of a rickshaw. It does not mean that same vehicle would work in any other country or circumstances. However, the message is there. Find a way to put together whatever is available to develop a solution that meets your need. I believe we are moving in that direction with increasing oil prices, global 24x7 customers, diffusion of jobs, and depleting resources.

Let's be prepared to be creative on the fly, and innovate on demand for ourselves, and for our customers. Everyone wins with Jugad! To see Jugad live, click here.

Last month I had an opportunity to speak on innovation at the IIT Chicago's Bangalore campus. It is amazing to see talk and walk going on in this area there. Then I visited Prakash Kappoth, Senior Manager – Knowledge Management, whom I met at RealInnovation and Raj Datta, Chief Knowledge Officer, both at MindTree Consulting to share lessons in innovation. Interestingly, MindTree has been practicing innovation methods, innovation community, and social networks already in India. From our brief discussion, it appears that MindTree has implemented elements of the innovation process including the organization, technology infrastructure, knowledge sharing, idea management, and recognition and reward.

Innovation Chat with a CEO

Continuing my innovation exploration, I had an opportunity to chat with Ashok Chaturvedi, the founder Chairman and Managing Director (CMD equivalent of CEO) of The Flex Group (www.uflexltd.com), a multi-national packaging company based in India, exporting films, packages, and laminates to about 90 countries, and expanding operations globally.

Ashok Chaturvedi, CMD, UFLEX Limited

Letting my jetlag be responsible for omissions, the following Q&A represents what I could capture during our short interview session:

Q. What does innovation mean to you?

A. In flexible packaging, innovation means gain market share and improve bottom line by creating new packages, and is all about creating uniqueness coupled with ability to capture that uniqueness. We create new packages which customers find it better than found anywhere, and these are difficult to replicate. Innovation includes technology, material processing, and design. We have ignored our intellectual property earlier, but now we are patenting our packaging solutions going forward.

Q. What is your strategic commitment to innovation?

A. I head our innovation team and strongly involve for developing new products. There is a team of key individuals focusing on innovation. Innovation does not mean cost cutting exercises. I do not believe cost cutting is the same as innovation. To me, innovation means new products that drive process and technology innovations. For example, P&G requested an innovative package to improve an existing package for better shelf space utilization. We were able to develop a flexible packaging that highlights the product, takes less shelf space, and appealing to the customer.

Q. How satisfied are you with returns on innovation?

A. We are very happy with our strategic innovation effort. Innovation is the only way to keep the bottom line good, and market share grow. Without innovation manufacturing will become a rote activity, and lose its momentum and margin. Innovation always keeps you younger. With innovation we can protect the price, and serve our customers better.

Q. How is innovation managed?

A. As I mentioned earlier, I am heading the R&D division in Flexible packaging division. My job is not just to manage finance, or make key decisions. My primary job is to drive innovation. I am developing a team of innovators in flexible packaging. The team is expected to produce many innovative solutions that will be commercialized in 2009. The company profile will change in 2010. Last year we introduced nine new products scheduled for introduction in the next 18 months. We recently received a global patent for slider head zipper assembly with laser score and a metallic barrier.

Q. How is innovation rewarded at UFLEX?

A. We are paid to innovate, it is our job.

Learning innovation is critical for me in order to teach innovation. I read about other people's work, and try to expand my understanding of innovation. Recent trend in offering recipes of innovations sound confounding to me. For example, some of the best selling innovation books and methodologies include the magic ‘Ten.' Here is a list of the Ten's of innovation:

Ten rules of strategic innovations

Ten rules of elegant innovations

Ten types of innovations

Ten faces of innovations

Trying to comprehend these methods or strategies in these books I can not figure out which combination of strategic rule, elegant innovations, types and faces would be good for me. I wonder how one would remember 40 things and their possible combinations from only four experts. There are many more innovation experts in the field. One must accept that these methods represent some aspects of innovation, not everything. Still the question remains how I use Ten's. I hope you know what I am getting at. If I appear confused, help me! Give me your advice. It is your turn!

The list of Most Innovative companies in Business Week interests me a lot. I do not know what to do with the list. What can one learn from the companies listed on the list? They all look good companies, so are many more companies off the list. I recognize the criteria for ranking most innovative companies included stock performance, revenue growth, profit growth, and patents. My experience shows that patent and stock performance are not very effective measures given that only about 5% of patents are gainfully deployed.

I tried to answer the question. Why should a company be innovative? How does innovation help a company? Was innovation systemically utilized or the company hit the home run? What was the return on investment in innovation, or simply return on innovation?

Answering these questions I came up with variety of classification, such as Most Innovative, Best Innovation, Innovation Managed, and Return on Innovation. To me the company is most innovative that grows its revenue the most. The company that sold more has to be innovative given the primary purpose of innovation is growth. A company is best innovative when its revenue growth is profitable. The company that manages innovation means its R&D process contributes to its profitable growth. Finally, the return on innovation, where R&D is the major component of a company's innovation, has to be the profit earned from the revenue growth per its R&D dollar.

The following table consisting of the top 25 and a few more using the Business Week data for 2003-2006 period, shows top five companies for the above four categories. I hope it makes sense to you as it does to me. If not, post your thoughts. Love to read your comments:

* Companies using the Business Week's list of Most Innovative Companies 2007

Most Innovative - Revenue Growth Volume ($)

Best Innovative - % Revenue Growth * % Profit Growth

Innovation Managed - % Revenue Growth * % Profit Growth/ % of Sales R&D Expense

Return on Innovation - Revenue Growth * % Profit/ R&D Expense ($)

It is interesting to note that return on innovation for Nokia ($ 0.84) that is twice that of Motorola ($ 0.41).

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