ideaken blog - collaborate to innovate

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

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Mon, 21 May 2012 07:14:12 PDT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu Mani) — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:32:17 PDT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu Mani) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:15:58 PDT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:13:52 PDT

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

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

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

WHY (diversity has positive impact)

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

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

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

HOW (you can promote diversity)

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

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

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

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu Mani) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:19:29 PST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 03:42:20 PST

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tracking sheet could look something like below.

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

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

Be method agnostic - for your innovation goals.

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:21:35 PST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu Mani) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:59:26 PST

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

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

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

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

WHY this is an opportunity

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

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

HOW you can leverage this

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

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:17:11 PDT

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

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

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

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

Imagine one of following three scenarios …

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

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

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

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

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:38:38 PDT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Race to patent office or race to invent”

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

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

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

What do you think ?

ideaken featured in Entrepreneur magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:26:07 PDT

ideaken featured in Indian edition of Entrepreneur magazine’s September 2011 issue.

Entrepreneur magazine is one of the biggest selling business magazines on US newsstands, published in 6 countries with 3 million readers worldwide.

In India Entrepreneur is published by the fastest growing media company Network 18

To read a full article - pick up a copy of Entrepreneur! or contact us here.

From ‘Ego’ to ‘Pride’ – The change in Innovation mindset?

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:13:50 PDT

‘Ego’ occupies its place inside every individual from early childhood, be it a self respect or a self esteem, or even arrogance. And as enterprises are made of people, enterprises too have their ego.

Traditionally ‘Ego’ has been one of the driving forces behind companies doing innovation. I say - one of the factors, because there are many other factors which drive innovation, but here I am trying to explore just the ego angle.

This ‘Ego’ is usually two fold, one in terms of being superior to the competition and second being superior to your own self. Both types are healthy!

Over the time, however the cost of keeping this ‘Ego’ has gone up. It’s neither the individual’s fault nor the enterprise’s – ‘Globalization’ is the culprit, and unfortunately you or your enterprise cannot stop this guy!

So should one forget about the ‘Ego’? Some decided just that, some are ok to pay the cost of it, but some of them decided to reinvent it.

Let’s talk about the people and enterprises that are reinventing it, in other words innovating the innovation itself. What I feel they did is – they (e.g. P&G) worked backwards. Backwards from the final goal of wanting to be innovative. Instead of looking down and cut cost they looked up, they replaced the ‘Ego’ with the ‘Pride’. Even in this lot, not everyone worked backwards, others who saw this work, just followed the trend setters.

With ‘Ego’ being out of sight, these enterprises became far more open, they started collaborating with employees, customers, vendors and even someone completely stranger for their innovation needs. The real test though was if they really can get innovation done this way, it turns out that they did!

Obviously now instead of cost of ‘Ego’, they dealt with cost of ‘Pride’.

They soon realized that they no longer need to increase their innovation budget in direct proportionate to the increased innovation expectations.

The cost of pride turned out to be far less than the cost of ego, in turn resolving their initial challenge around cost.

Additionally, ‘Pride’ felt far more positive a feeling than the ‘Ego’.

Unless you are like Steve Jobs, who would rather keep his ego, albeit for the right reasons, and innovate yourself at the cost and speed you can afford, for rest of us, I feel switch from ‘Ego’ centric innovation to ‘Pride’ centric innovation is on its way to become mainstream.

Is there a NON-INTRUSIVE way to start with OPEN INNOVATION?

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu Mani) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:44:49 PDT

Recently we met up with a team at a leading automotive and industrial technology company.

As expected, the team there were well aware of open innovation (OI) and they told us how they too believe that the future of innovation belongs to OI. However there was an issue. The lead team is wondering how to get a buy in from their in-house research team - on where to start and how to start.

We offered some suggestions and we thought of some more along the same lines later. These may not necessarily be solutions to your OI problems, but they might provide some food for thought.

1) Start with a non critical innovation - The best way to avoid any issue at the beginning is to start small, and start with the non critical innovation needs. You can do this by selecting the really tough challenges or near to impossible solutions (Or really simple ones on the creative lines which does not have a right or wrong perceptions). Remember your objective is to start somewhere with OI. Do reward the deserving efforts (even though you may not be benefiting from it at the first try), not rewarding the deserving effort will put you in middle of a different issue to deal with! Another issue you will need to handle here would be to justify that - if you didn’t get the right solution then why do it again (and your private & one to one answer needs to be along the lines that the objective was to create a culture and not find a solution).

2) Make the in-house research team the owner of OI – The solutions coming in; using OI; should strictly be considered as ‘raw material’ for the internal research team. There needs to be a conscious effort to not bypass the internal team. The best way to do this is to make the in-house research team the owner of OI. The management team just above the core research team should not try to a) push too hard for OI b) get access to inputs coming in from outside c) should focus on the final outcome from their internal team (just the way they were doing earlier).

3) Select Vendors and Suppliers using open innovation – Today organizations select vendors and suppliers using either a recommendation, external consultation or via a RFP process. Though there is nothing wrong in these traditional methods, you have an opportunity to add a bit of an innovation flavour (be it for technology, a supply process or support). Ask for stretch goals and see how the responses come in. You can also use dedicated innovation intermediaries and other established channels for your selection process. When done, advocate it as open innovation within your company.

One or more of the above could be an ideal way of starting open innovation within your company; in the end; you need to enable the internal R&D team in understanding the power of open innovation. Also this will provide hands on experience in evaluating and supplementing selected solutions and help break one of the myths - that the internal R&D team is not required when the company goes on the Open Innovation path.

The only way you will be able to continue the OI journey is when your internal research team is able to produce better outcome using OI and when the credit still stays with your internal innovation team.

Do you think these can work for your organization, or do you know of a better way? Do share with us.

Better have a Non-Innovative Chief Innovation Officer

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 20:32:05 PDT

You read it right. There is more to an innovation officer than innovation.

MUST have

1.    Foremost; something which you cannot learn by practice, it’s something inbuilt, don’t tick this off too quickly - Ability to smile at failure, wholeheartedly.

2.    Either an expert technologist with a keen interest in Business, or the other way round - Basically a Master of None. Because if you are one; then there is not only a possibility of a bias, but also a risk of not knowing what you don’t know!

3.    Collaboration is an overused word and so is Innovation, but you must bring these words together to collaborate to innovate. You need to be - A messenger, between all the Grey assets of your enterprise - especially the ones which are not labeled as Grey; and the Business of your enterprise. You will also enable engagements at top management level, both within and outside enterprise for decisions related to innovation.

4.    You are happy only when you have added building blocks to your company’s sales growth, however small, but definitely repeatedly. You have an Ability to get bored with status quo!.

GOOD to have

1.    This is another one which you cannot learn but only experience. Diversity in your thoughts blooms when you have often had lunch outside of your country and culture.

2.    ‘What if’ mindset, not necessarily of a chess player, but of a curious one, who might just window shop..

Must NOT

1.    The deadliest mistake is to have chief innovation officer as a mere ornamental position. When it is, the innovation agenda goes on for years w/o any positive impact on the organization and no one even notices it.

Before they decide to ‘Research’

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 20:40:22 PDT

We recently presented at a colloquium at Philips Innovation Campus. One of the topics of interest was the life cycle of a challenge. Questions which were asked inspired me to write a bit more about the management of challenges, way before someone starts logging time against them. Or in case of collaborative innovation, well before the challenge starts showing up all over the place.

In short - it’s good to know the directions, especially before getting onto a free way.

So what do the best organizations do before they start putting in their time and resources on research?

They start with a “Challenge Inventory” and few good practices around it.

1) Does your organization have a place, people and process to log a challenge? If not, you need to start here. It could be a simple form with set of people as owners. The mode could be via your intranet website or even email.

2) Now the best way to make your employees know that such an inventory exists, is to ask your employees to submit a challenge, the best challenge wins a prize. You must also tell what they should do when they think of a challenge in future.

Note that it’s all about challenges and some more challenges, here we are not taking about the solutions.

It is best not to.

A challenge could be anywhere from very complex to not so complex and could be on high end technology, to just a process hiccup.

Examples are ...

Our competition’s turnaround time for a repair call is 3 days while ours is 7 days, and we don’t have additional budget for our services division.

Our current adhesive on the belt takes 2 hours to dry, but the print on the package fades a bit when exposed to the heat used for drying adhesive.

For a re-launch, we want to replace our yogurt’s artificial flavor with a natural ingredient.

~~Never strike off an impossible looking challenge~~ like “Our hybrid should accelerate similar to our best sports model”

Also when you store them in central place, all can access and leverage the previous efforts on the similar challenges.

3) Prioritize the challenge inventory list with a set of relevant filters at that point of time. Never fix these filters upfront. The example of the filters could be ‘Natural ingredient’ (for the new launch). When you apply such a filter, all the challenges which have natural ingredient in it will go up the list and help you attack the problem from multiple directions.

Even open up a completely new possibility.

Above steps should be aimed at identifying your top X challenges and top Y domains at this point of time. Once you do, you are armed with the information you need for initiating collaborative innovation and make an impact.

ideaken helps organizations draw up collaborative innovation strategy, benefit from open innovation and leverage co-creation.

Open innovation case study

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 23:03:59 PDT

Here is one of ideaken’s open innovation case studies.

This case study provides details on how open innovation was used for a innovation goal with much success using ideaken platform

Visit www.ideaken.com for more details, or write to us at contact@ideaken.com

Things which don’t exist in a lab

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu Mani) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:44:37 PDT

Just think about it, by the time you finish having your coffee, at least 10 new research papers would have been completed, by somebody somewhere in this world. Each would have taken their authors anywhere between 3-12 months. Some of this research, probably, addressing the very problem your company is dealing with.

Unlike the goods which get manufactured, a research item, many a time, does not have a predefined audience or an intended buyer. Being a product of academicians or sometimes just personal passion, there may not be any plan or effort to commercialize it, hence obviously it may not show up in a marketplace.

The story is the same for ideas, innovations, work-arounds or solutions, which constantly get created round the clock. The environmental conditions, passion or the necessities, under which these happen is impossible to replicate in any organised lab. In fact, some of these factors, can never exist in a lab.

This is the space where innovation intermediaries and technologies like semantic and business intelligence operate. It is possible today to monitor conversations about your interests in different parts of the world and reach out to someone who could have the solutions that your company is searching for. It is possible today to reach out, to people across continents or even in your own neighborhood, yet unknown, using the services of intermediaries.

‘Innovation’ is fast turning away from an ego centric mindset, where it must come from within a company, to just another on demand plug in, which empowers the real goals of the organization.

In turn, the in-house labs are becoming more versatile, busy, and are churning out innovation faster with the help of collaborative innovation.

Speed of innovation is the need of the hour, in this fiercely competitive world.

Open Innovation Vs. Co-creation

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:41:20 PDT

Obvious first question is ‘Does Open innovation and Co-creation need to be put against each other or even put together?’

Not really, unless you are already wondering about the differences! You question if there is a common ground. Or simply you want to use these terms and be on the same page with someone else.

Let’s attempt theory of elimination.

In Open innovation, you would have a) a clear need specified b) you would go out of your enterprise boundaries to get those needs fulfilled c) you would expect the solution to be ready or semi ready d) Your solution provider might be a financial beneficiary, but may not be the end user. e) Your needs are highly technical, and you have already figured out the value creation from the expected solution.

(When an enterprise wants molecule A reacting with molecule B with the help of unknown C, so that they can get D. Boundaries are set. A good open innovation candidate is on the table.).

Anything which does not have one or more of above attributes could possibly have a flavor of Co-creation.

Here is how.

a) You don’t have a clear need or a challenge (circumstantial or by design). You might have a high level goal, for which you are open to define a challenge and solve it using some means. Or you could be simply tuning in to see what you can pick up.

b) You are not scouting for a solution; you are scouting for people. These people are enthusiasts or lead users who can work with you to define both the challenge and the solution or either of it. You may or may not go out of your enterprise or may just stick to your known circle like customers, vendors or employees.

c) You do not expect the solution to be ready or semi ready. Since even the problem is open for definition and zeroing in - you most probably may start with a clean slate.

d) In addition to technical know-how you are banking on the emotional participation from a solution provider. Just like co-founders of a start-up, who are far more interested to crack the right need as a team and not just utilize co-founder as another resource.

e) Your needs may or may not be highly technical in nature. The value expected from the outcome may still not be known and the same is being co-created.

Those being some differences for co-creation with respect to open innovation, are there any similarities?

In both open innovation and co-creation – you are fundamentally trying to leverage resources which are not traditional ones, not necessarily on your payroll, on your approved list of vendor, or certified by someone, and not designated to execute your innovation solution.

You may not upfront know how many will contribute, and that number may not even matter to you!

In both cases you are trying to tap into the long tail phenomenon. Your success rate is not 10 out of 10, but your cost is lower and you are keen to stumble upon value which otherwise could remain hidden or be eventually found at your competition’s camp.

So what do you believe in - open innovation or co-creation, or did you feel like redefining some of the definitions above?

ideaken team enjoys understanding how open innovation and co-creation space is shaping up, and how the innovation platforms must enable enterprises to increase the collaborative innovation yield.

Open innovation India

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 02:25:21 PST

Are Indian companies ready for open innovation?

Multinational companies (MNCs) which are making India their second home have brought in the culture of open innovation here. Companies like Xerox, P&G, and General Mills are already perusing open innovation aggressively in India. Indian companies like Tata, Mahindra & Mahindra, Future Group and Biocon are not far behind and are already engaging with employees, vendors and customers to co-create.

While companies in the west suffered from Not Invented Here syndrome (NIH) and are working to get over it. Many (not all) Indian companies suffer from Why Invent (WI) syndrome; good news is - it is a declining tribe!

There is a bigger shift in the making. With the world’s focus shifting to Asia, the responsibility of getting innovation done is also tagging along. And when that happens, local companies are joining the bandwagon, for competitive reasons. In addition Open Innovation in Service industry and benefits of incremental innovation are getting quite an attention for ROI reasons.

Some select Indian companies are quick to realize that there is a lead time needed to get into the culture of open innovation and co-creation. Companies with this foresight probably will dictate the landscape of domain leaders and the followers in this decade.

Are Indian innovators ready for open innovation?

Over the years Indians have becoming more aware of their personal intellectual capital in a global context, and connectivity is providing insight into the markets with buying powers – in turn making Indians an irresistible choice for companies hungry for brainpower.

So does this mean Indians are turning the table around on the innovation front? The answer is ‘not yet’. Indians are highly social and love to share, however they shy away when there is a probability of failure, specifically in a non business environment like creativity and innovation. Though innovativeness of Indians is not disputable, I am specifically pointing to the volume and the impact density.

The pace at which the knowledge economy is growing, however, clearly indicates that a certain percentage (which accounts for quite a volume) is moving to the next orbit – and becoming hard core innovators. Not to forget a Jugaad mindset which has produced millions of innovations in India over the years. With the market needs beyond Jugaad – there comes the supply beyond Jugaad.

There is a huge opportunity lining up for Indian innovators both globally and locally. And the innovators who open up to the collaborative innovation will find themselves rewarded - both intellectually and monetarily.

ideaken is leading the service platform space for open innovation and co-creation in India. Facilitating open innovation and co-creation for companies across the world and India, and innovators on board from more than 160 countries, thousands of them from India.

Architecting an A-Ha ecosystem

noreply@blogger.com (Madhu Mani) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:51:32 PDT

"An A-Ha" moment - for a problem that you have been grappling with for a long time. Interestingly the solution once arrived at, starts to look like a obvious one, and you wonder why you didn't think of it before. Enterprises all over the world are interested in institutionalising this and so wonder "Can we make the A-ha moment repeatable and produce it at will?" Of course, it is not possible to architect these moments, but instead you can architect an ecosystem which can foster these moments.

Depending on your enterprise DNA, there are various steps you can take, we describe some below to pick from.

Maintain inventory of problems – Most organizations miss this step. They might have KM system to capture the knowledge and idea management to capture the ideas but there are few enterprises that maintain a list of problems. This when carefully planned, pays by providing road map for enterprise innovation.

Creativity attracts creativity – Be innovative in how you approach the process of getting your problems solved. Idea boxes may not be the best way to go, instead illustrative challenge definition is one way of telling others that you are looking forward to and are serious about the solutions.

Break hierarchical model of problem solving – A problem does not need to be solved by the lead scientist or by someone who has tendency to come up with ideas. Find ways to democratise the innovation process. However don’t attempt this unless you create a buy in from R&D folks and the management.

Onboard the ‘A-ha’ moment owner - Dare him to expand on the idea and as far as possible and bring him onboard when you take the idea forward. It’s nice to make deserving person feel important. Not only will this add value in rolling out the solution but will also send an immensely positive message to others to ideate for you in the future.

Think about it, how many precious sparks might have faded and how many are about to meet the same fate. The least enterprises can do is to provide an ecosystem which enables a-ha moments to arrive, and assure proper treatment, when they do arrive.

ideaken helps enterprises build this ecosystem of collaborative innovation.

What can innovation seeking enterprises DO with LEGO set manuals?

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 00:07:40 PST

LEGO pieces can be converted into far more variety of structures in addition to what is given in its manual. The outcome is usually unusual, and ranges from having no significant beauty to having an extraordinary beauty which has not been created before; and an originality which could carry a class and a value of its own.

Seems quite obvious. Let’s examine it a little closer and see what goes on to make this obvious - the obvious.

1) The child or a parent needs to think that maybe she should try to build something without referring the manual. (Innovative organizations always have involved leadership who understands the unstructured nature of creativity and facilitate this direction.)

2) The child might behave clueless at first, but show him once even the three piece structure done without the manual and see how she takes it further from there. (Besides providing vision, leaders know the importance of enablement.)

3) You won’t fail to notice the pride in her voice when she finally shows it to you. (It is of utmost importance to encourage and reward the effort, in however small or insignificant ways.)

4) You have kept the manual and she does refer it for the fundamentals like - what fits where, once in a while. (Building innovation culture efforts does not need to change the ways you run your company, however it might need a tweak here and a tweak there.)

Hiding them occasionally is what innovation seeking enterprises can DO with the LEGO set manuals.

ideaken team can help your enterprise in planning & implementing points 2,3 and 4 mentioned above and benefit from the power of co-creation and open innovation.

FINISH uses crowd sourcing to find solutions for Indian sanitation problem

noreply@blogger.com (Munish K Gupta) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:19:27 PST

ideaken's journey with FINISH began with a chance meeting over the internet. However as we have continued our journey, we have been humbled to meet some great people who are committed to the cause of total sanitation system in rural India. We are proud to be associated with FINISH and sincerely hope that the ideaken platform helps FINISH to meet their noble and worthy objective.

A search for a rural toilet design begins on 19th Nov – the World Toilet Day

FINISH is launching an “innovation contest” to create new and improved sanitation systems for rural India, with rewards up to Rs. 620,000 (or 10,000 Euros) is up for grab. The contest is being launched on World Toilet Day - 19th Nov 2010. FINISH will incorporate the best innovations generated by the contest in thousands of toilets being installed in rural India under its programme.

November 17, 2010 - India / Netherlands / France
It is often said that Safe Sanitation Systems form the last chapter of human development. 1 in every 4 person in the world does not have access to Sanitation. India is a prime illustration.
Indian Space scientists have put machines on the moon, yet 1 in every 2 Indians does not have access to toilets. Everyday 638 million people or about 50% of the population in India resort to open defecation.

There has been progress, from the “Central Rural Sanitation Programme”, which was initiated in 1988 by the Government of India, to the “Total Sanitation Campaign” launched in the year 1999. However, according to the 2010 report by UNICEF, on progress in sanitation coverage, even in 2008, 69% of rural Indian population did not have access to toilets.
All private and public sanitation drives suffer from some common problems.

The quality of constructed toilets is very poor due to budgetary or time constraints.
Toilet designs are often not appropriate for the targeted ecological terrain.
A lack of clearly defined “standards” for toilet design is leading to toilets that pollute the environment.
Stakeholders do not have adequate awareness and knowledge of sustainable sanitation models.

The FINISH ‘Sanitation Challenge Contest’ is a serious attempt to find solutions to some of above problems. FINISH, which stands for Financial INclusion Improves Sanitation and Health, with the help of ideaken.com - a collaborative innovation platform provider and other network partners – WASTE, FIN Trust, Ethos India and the World Toilet Organisation have launched an innovation competition to generate new designs in sanitation systems.

The contest is open to all individuals and institutions. Its objective is to arrive at significant, even revolutionary improvements in toilet design, and safe disposal system, specifically suited to different climatic, soil, water table conditions, which will ensure sustainable and safe management of the human waste. This new toilet design will be used to diffuse 1 million safe toilets in India.

“The 3rd toilet was constructed by the NGO even though 2 unused toilets already stand in the same house.” (This tells us that just building toilets won’t solve the issue)

You can help too

Please diffuse this news to sources you think can contribute to designing this new sanitation system. (Including but not limited to social media sites, news sources, NGOs, SMEs in Sanitation, WC/ Restroom and waste management areas, and Engineering and Design crowd)

Please click here to participate in the contest

Please click here to view complete press release

A slice of new products and services via vendor co-creation

noreply@blogger.com (Jayesh Badani) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:58:54 PDT

Beside your enterprise and your customers, there is a rich layer of vendors your enterprise deals with. You deal with these vendors as they fulfill certain purposes of your business. Invariably these vendors develop fertile characteristics which are a mix of deep understanding of your business, solid technical know how and awareness of what else is happening in the industry you operate in.

Above attributes put your vendors in a unique position which you may not like to ignore.

There are various ways you could benefit from this, and the most promising could be how you could tap into this relevant talent beyond your primary reason of engaging with these vendors. For example you might be dealing with your vendors to provide you with a spare part, raw material, a particular service or a piece of software. Now is there a way you could tap into the peripheral talent of these vendors and their employees to add credible value to the tasks which you do in-house?

Obviously the first question to ask and to figure out is if your enterprise has such vendors; with whom you have been dealing with for a while, and over the years have developed a potential which could be tapped?

Second important question to ask is – is it possible to tap into this talent without being intrusive with your vendor’s talent and w/o violating contractual or IP issues. Part of the answer for this question could be to do this co-creation along with the existing projects / contracts. When co-creation is done as part of bigger engagement, it has a lesser chance of being looked as intrusive. When co-creation is implemented with a clear purpose, IP issues could be addressed upfront and hence managed better.

Clients have been always asking for additional value (and that additional slide on value proposition has been part of your selling deck ever since), now it appears that clients have started to look into more systematic ways of getting there, and vendor co-creation seems to be paving the way for it.

As a vendor, being partner in co-creation can add a tremendous differentiators, which can help you create client stickiness you always welcome, and a value proposition which can elevate your bid vis-à-vis your competition.

As usual only a win-win proposition stand a chance, both you as a vendor to your client, and you as a client to your vendor can benefit from Vendor co-creation.

This article is inspired by my recent discussion with Vikesh Mehta, General Manager Enterprise innovation and Pavan Soni, innovation evangelist at Wipro Technologies.

yet2.com and ideaken.com partnership aims to place Asia onto the Innovation World Map

noreply@blogger.com (Munish K Gupta) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 01:26:17 PDT

Two years back, when ideaken team was doing their business planning, we had listed yet2.com as one of our top competitions! Today we are glad to partner with yet2.com. – Jayesh

yet2.com and ideaken.com partnership aims to place Asia onto the Innovation World Map

India / USA 21 Oct 2010 - yet2.com and ideaken.com today announced a partnership to jointly scout innovative solutions from individuals and technology SMEs for their enterprise clients.

Open innovation and Co-creation is the fastest emerging way to procure & supply innovation in a world of diminishing boundaries. This partnership will help both yet2.com and ideaken.com to expand their innovator solver base and get faster and better solutions for their enterprise clients. This partnership will also provide a greater opportunity for individual innovators and technology SMEs to access bigger market of innovation seekers from around the world.

Head quartered in US, yet2.com is world’s largest intellectual property exchange. ideaken.com is a leading open innovation intermediary and co-creation platform provider in Asia.

Dr. Eugene Buff, Vice President of Consulting for yet2.com, said, “Asia is a developing powerhouse of innovation that is of immense importance to the rest of the world. It’s also one of the world’s great markets for technology. yet2.com is very happy to be partnering with an organization of ideaken’s stature.”

“We look forward to a long partnership with ideaken,” said Ben DuPont, president and co-founder of yet2.com. “Innovation is not regional. Developments from Bangalore or Delhi can easily find their way to the shelves of New York or Tokyo, just as innovations from Berlin or Johannesburg may help companies in Bangalore. Organizations like ideaken and yet2.com exist to make these connections happen.”

Jayesh Badani, Founder and CEO of ideaken said “yet2.com and ideaken.com are in the business of tapping into innovative technology providers who are somewhere out there. It makes lot of sense to join forces and create a larger community of innovation seekers and innovation solvers, everybody wins this way. We help our clients collaborate to innovate; this partnership is about applying this principle to ourselves!”

Please click here to view complete press release

How to get ideas that are not 'a dime a dozen'?

noreply@blogger.com (Munish K Gupta) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 04:58:04 PDT

Today, every enterprise has or plans to have some sort of an idea management initiative to capture the ideas of their employees and customers. This could be because of a very strategic vision or the result of the hype about tapping into the wisdom of employees & customers. Some have mastered the art, but the rest end up being me too. Throughputs - some get as many as 150,000 ideas in a year and some just 15 from the same number of employees and customers. The effectiveness is equally extreme; some making real money from it and it becoming a main stream process for them, while others are completely clueless about the direction to navigate into.

Question is how organizations get hold of ideas that can elevate them to the next level, help them create a service or a product that could define a new market. In other words how do organizations harvest ideas which can make substantial & positive difference to the organizations’ objectives?

Part of the answer lies in following two strategies, this is with an assumption that all other operational aspects are taken care.

Before you ask for ideas

Shift your pitch from “Do you have an idea ... “ to “Do you have an idea FOR ...” Basically shift your pitch from generally asking for any idea to asking for an idea for a given challenge.
If you can’t think of a challenge then run a challenge to find a challenge, you will be surprised how many you unearth!
Stop behaving like you have the right to ask for ideas, instead create an atmosphere of co-creation.
If you do not genuinely intend to read each of the ideas received and try to figure out the intent behind each idea then stop right here (It saves your time, yes theirs too!). Often the intent of the idea provider will lead you to the ideas you are after.

After you get the ideas

Lookout for the possibility of combining two not so good ideas to get the good one out of it. Or pick up the clue to make the not so good one, a really good one.
Make the review team a mix of someone who could see the bigger picture and also someone who may not.
Refrain from judging the idea on the basis of how easy or difficult it is to implement it.
Look at the act of rewarding the person with a good idea as an act of encouraging the innovation spirit and not as an act of buying out the idea.

In short addressing the points relevant to your enterprise from list above, a well defined challenge with an incentive and a committed evaluation team could fetch you ideas which are not a dime dozen.