Cultura de la Innovación

Línea Base Cultura de la Innovación en Chile Consejo Nacional de Innovación para la Competitividad

2010-10-09T17:03:00.000-07:00

Objetos inteligentes

2008-10-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

Hace unos 2,5 millones de años, el ser humano (o alguno de sus antecesores) empezó a crear y utilizar diferentes herramientas de piedra haciendo uso de la tecnología para crear objetos que le ayudarían en diferentes tareas (cazar, cortar, defenderse…). Era el comienzo de la Edad de Piedra.

Hoy, sumergidos totalmente en la era digital, la tecnología ha evolucionado tanto que diseñadores, ingenieros u otros creadores de objetos se encuentran ante un inmenso rango de posibilidades para poder concebir artefactos que satisfagan diferentes necesidades (o deseos) del ser humano. Incluso, la posibilidad de crear robots u objetos inteligentes.

Pero ¿qué es un objeto inteligente? Un objeto inteligente es aquel que es capaz de “percibir” una situación, un contexto o una acción, “interpretar” dicha situación y “actuar” en consecuencia. Dicho de este modo, podemos pensar que estas pautas son similares a las del ser humano o a las de cualquier ser vivo. Pero existen grandes diferencias. Los objetos inteligentes perciben mediante sensores desde los detectores de presencia hasta los detectores de movimiento del iris o el reconocimiento de voz. Interpretan esta información basándose en algoritmos y actúan con motores, palancas, luces, emisores de sonido, pantallas… Por lo tanto, estamos hablando de una algoritmos. Además, hoy en día nos encontramos también con objetos inteligentes compuestos por materiales inteligentes o smart materials, que basan dicha inteligencia en cambios en su estructura molecular...

Como dice Donald Norman en "The Design of Future Things", lo inteligente no son los objetos, sino sus creadores. El gran reto es que identifiquen situaciones y procesen la información correctamente para que sus acciones nos resulten previsibles y/o comprensibles. En el momento en que un objeto inteligente realiza una acción que no comprendemos, comienza la desconfianza…

En el campo de los automóviles se están incorporando muchos elementos inteligentes: parabrisas que se activan solos cuando son necesarios, luces que se encienden cuando hacen falta, sonidos que alertan al conductor que esta despistado o sistemas que facilitan el ir dentro del carril. Si todo va bien, perfecto. Imaginemos que las luces no se encienden al entrar en un túnel, que el parabrisas se pone en marcha sin que llueva o que el automóvil dé constantes avisos sonoros al conductor, a pesar de que éste vaya concentrado. O más trágico, que el coche no deje al conductor esquivar un obstáculo de la carretera para evitar que salga de su carril.

Gari Iruretagoiena

Vía Flylosophy

Fusionman

2008-08-11T22:54:00.000-07:00

Yves Rossy – FusionMan

Flying around with your own personal jet engine, strapped to your back, has been one of the hallmarks of futurism for decades. Which sucks, because futuristic stuff is supposed to eventually happen. So why the hell aren't we all flying to work via rocket power? Because you're about as aerodynamic as a potato, my friend. Here are five reasons the jet pack just hasn't happened yet, despite announcements that "a practical jetpack" will be on the market soon.

1. Humans are not designed to fly. Until you gene-mod a nice aerofoil onto your back, you are never going to soar like a bird. Nothing about the way you are shaped creates lift. That means the jet pack has to provide all the lift via thrust.
2. Thrust burns a lot of fuel. All that lifting power comes at a price, and we're not talking $4 per gallon (it's actually a lot more expensive than that). You can only fly as far as your fuel will take you, which today is about a 30 second flight. No problem, just carry more fuel, right? To get any kind of practical flight time, you need a massive fuel tank on your back. The extra fuel weight requires more thrust, which burns more fuel. It's a vicious cycle made worse by the fact that most "jet packs" are actually rocket packs. They need to carry their own chemical oxidizer along with the fuel.
3. Danger! Jet and rocket packs are notoriously unstable flight platforms. They're really hard to fly. Then there's the altitude problem. With a 30-second flight, you're not going to get high enough for a parachute or any other safety system to do any good. If the engine cuts out or you lose control, you're probably going to create a small crater.
4. Rockets and jets are really, really loud. You're not going to sneak up on anyone with your jet pack, so military uses are mostly out. In fact, you can forget using one anywhere near other people.
5. Inefficiency. There's really no point in flying one person around. Pretty much any practical use you can come up with for a jet pack can be done with a lower tech, cheaper and more efficient solution. This is the main reason the other problems haven't been overcome by awesome engineers yet — beyond looking cool and flying around, we don't really need jet packs.

That said, there are companies still working on this stuff. Many of them seem to be moving in the direction of jet propulsion instead of the old rocket belt technology, which could offer longer flight times. I think Swiss engineer Yves Rossy (pictured) has the right idea. He combined jet engines with a lightweight wing and can use it to do aerobatic maneuvers. You can read more about the history and development of jet packs over at HowStuffWorks.com. Image by: Getty Images.

Mad Engineering

Negative Refraction Breakthroughs!

The news has broken: we are all going to be able to purchase cloaks of invisibility in a few years. Or perhaps not. Some recent research from Berkeley is a big step and will, no doubt, find many applications, but invisibility is not among them. We take a look at what the researchers achieved and use the Ars meta-crystal ball™ to predict where this will end up being employed.

MetaMaterials

MetaMaterials.net is the Internet Web Portal of Metamaterials, created for the community of scientists to meet and exchange information about microwave and optical metamaterials. This Web Site is hosted by the Institute of the Chemical-Physical Processes of the National Research Council, Italy. The subscription is free, please don't hesitate to contact the staff to have more details and information. E. Prati, PhD Contact us at: info at metamaterials dot net

Serendipity: Human egg makes accidental debut on camera

2008-06-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

"...Look closely: this is history in the making. These are the clearest pictures ever taken of what is the starting point of every human life: ovulation occurring inside a woman's body. See the photos

"The release of the oocyte from the ovary is a crucial event in human reproduction," says Jacques Donnez at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) in Brussels, Belgium. "These pictures are clearly important to better understand the mechanism."

Observing ovulation in humans is extremely rare, and previous images have been fuzzy. Donnez captured the event by accident while preparing to carry out a partial hysterectomy on a 45-year-old woman. The release of an egg was considered a sudden, explosive event, but his pictures, to be published in Fertility and Sterility, show it taking place over a period of at least 15 minutes..." (More…)

(Vía: NewScientist)

Map of Science

2008-06-03T19:33:00.000-07:00

Maps of science

The sciences and social sciences, 2004

2008 World Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship

2008-04-11T21:23:00.000-07:00

Dubai to host world summit on innovation and entrepreneurship
“…Dubai: Dubai will hold the 2008 World Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (2008 WSIE), the most inspiring gathering of its kind, from 1-3 April 2008. 'Innovation as the key instrument for global competitiveness and peace' is the mantra of the event."The future of the Arab World belongs to the present majority of the youth population under 20 years of age. The summit seeks to challenge the status quo, dispute facts and figures and urge world leaders to commit to solutions that empower young arab leaders with the knowledge, the resources and the policy environment needed for their successful future," said Sam Hamdan, Chairman and Chief Strategist of the Global Leadership Team and Architect of WSIE…”

Finding Innovation Where It Lives
“…When you read up on the greatest products ever created, you find out that the innovator was often ignored or ridiculed by his company along the way and had to struggle with management. Why does this happen? Shouldn't managers at least be giving these people moral support? — Anonymous, Livermore, Calif… If only managers could see the future like they should, right? Come on! Of course, no one in an organization should be ignored or ridiculed. That's a rule, and any manager who breaks it is a jerk. But you have to cut managers a break on the innovation front. How are ordinary mortals to know if the employee toiling on a promising project is the next Bill Gates or a resource-draining wannabe? The fact is, not every explorer, whether he's seeking new worlds in a garage or a corporate R&D lab, ends up discovering the Next Big Thing. Some are just dabblers. Some are just dreamers. And some, despite their brains, ambition, and sincerity, aren't focused on the right thing for the market. No wonder, then, that many experienced managers have trouble lending moral support to the aspiring innovators in their midst and can barely keep from groaning when these same types ask for extra people, time, and funding...”

Building Expertise Through Collective Innovation

2008-03-10T17:36:00.000-07:00

“…Open innovation has been a hot management phrase for the past five years. So far, though, these collaborations have generally been focused on small-scale research and development, or technology ventures between giant global brands and smaller partners. Think Proctor & Gamble's (PG) collaborations with universities and suppliers or IBM's (IBM) embrace of an open-source software language which both saves the company money and provides it with a new revenue stream.

But what if you brought together design heads from some of the world's biggest global brands with the aim of stimulating innovation? That was the premise of the fifth annual Raymond conference on Feb. 28 and 29 in Rotterdam attended by 17 design managers from companies as diverse as Heineken, Philips, Lego, Airbus, and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). Designers are accustomed to working with external consultants and customers, but Raymond's aim is different: fostering cooperation between design teams at big global companies in radically different markets…” (more)

Putting Innovation in the Hands of a Crowd

Collective innovation

Innovation & Design

2008-01-06T17:54:00.000-08:00

Apple: More Than a Pretty Face

Consumer electronics companies need to do more than pare product lines and make cool stuff. What Apple offers is a complete ecosystem

Gadget lovers take note: Consumer electronics (CE) companies are cutting back their product lines. Gone are the days when manufacturers created a dozen in-line products to cover every price point. Rather than spreading chips across the table, CE brands like Sony (SNE) and Samsung are following Apple's (AAPL) lead by stacking more chips on a few well-placed bets. Sony, for example, now offers just three models of ultra-slim point-and-shoot cameras in its CyberShot line. But will such paring enable Sony and others to succeed the way Apple has? Will this mean more products we love or more dross on the shelves?

Maybe you're thinking, "Not more Apple hype." But it's hard not to think of Apple as the innovator in the CE space. Apple is driving digital lifestyle on a global scale, and it's doing so in the face of economic adversity. The National Retail Federation reported that consumer spending on Black Friday dropped 3.5% compared with 2006. According to a MasterCard (MA) Spending Pulse report, sales of electronics rose just 2.7% from Thanksgiving to Dec. 24, 2007, over the same period a year earlier. Meanwhile, Apple anticipates holiday-quarter sales of $9.2 billion, a 29% increase over 2006, while the Mac operating system hit a record 8% market share in the closing days of the year. With the annual Consumer Electronics Show fast approaching, Apple is once again sure to be the talk of a trade show it doesn't even attend (More…)

The State of Innovation

It's not just a buzzword—three recent surveys find innovation is still a high priority with a majority of executives across industries and across the World

For most business leaders, the dusk of 2007 is a time of transition and, well, uncertainty: Will the U.S. dollar continue its slide? How deeply will the problems of the home mortgage market affect the broader international economy? Do China, Google (GOOG), and the next presidential administration pose threats or opportunities?

But when it comes to "innovation," there is at least some agreement among senior executives. This year (2007), surveys from three leading consultancies—Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, and Booz Allen Hamilton—show innovation remains a high priority for most corporate leaders around the world. There's consensus across industries that innovation is a key growth driver. Unfortunately, the surveys also reflect a broad belief that most companies don't have the leadership, systems, or tools to successfully and consistently innovate (More…)

The Art of Innovation: The 9 Truths (by Guy Kawasaki)

2007-12-08T17:54:00.000-08:00

I'm getting tired of writing about lies, so today I'm covering truths. Specifically, the truths of innovation. I hold these truths to not be self-evident; hence we see so little innovation.

Jump to the next curve. Too many companies duke it out on the same curve. If they were daisy wheel printer companies, they think innovation means adding Helvetica in 24 points. Instead, they should invent laser printing. True innovation happens when a company jumps to the next curve – or better still, invents the next curve, so set your goals high.

Don't worry, be crappy. An innovator doesn't worry about shipping an innovative product with elements of crappiness if it's truly innovative. The first permutation of a innovation is seldom perfect – Macintosh, for example, didn't have software (thanks to me), a hard disk (it wouldn't matter with no software anyway), slots, and color. If a company waits – for example, the engineers convince management to add more features – until everything is perfect, it will never ship, and the market will pass it by.

Churn, baby, churn. I'm saying it's okay to ship crap – I'm not saying that it's okay to stay crappy. A company must improve version 1.0 and create version 1.1, 1.2, ... 2.0. This is a difficult lesson to learn because it's so hard to ship an innovation; therefore, the last thing employees want to deal with is complaints about their perfect baby. Innovation is not an event. It's a process.

Don't be afraid to polarize people. Most companies want to create the holy grail of products that appeals to every demographic, social-economic background, and geographic location. To attempt to do so guarantees mediocrity. Instead, create great DICEE (Deep, Intelligent, Complete, Elegant, Emotive) products that make segments of people very happy. And fear not if these products make other segments unhappy. The worst case is to incite no passionate reacons at all, and that happens when companies try to make everyone happy.

Break down the barriers. The way life should work is that innovative products are easy to sell. Dream on. Life isn't fair. Indeed, the more innovative, the more barriers the status quo will erect in your way. Entrepreneurs should understand this upfront and not get flustered when market acceptance comes slowly. I've found that the best way to break barriers is enable people to test drive your innovation: download your software, take home your hardware, whatever it takes.

“Let a hundred flowers blossom” I stole this from Chairman Mao. Innovators need to be flexible about how people use their products. Avon created Skin So Soft to soften skin, but when parents used it as an insect repellant, Avon went with the flow. Apple thought it created a spreadsheet/database/wordprocessing computer; but, come to find out, customers used it as a desktop publishing machine. The lesson is: Don't be proud. Let a hundred flowers blossom.

Think digital, act analog. Thinking digital means that companies should use all the digital tools at its disposal – computers, web sites, instruments, whatever – to create great products. But companies should act analog – that is, they must remember that the purpose of innovation is not cool products and cool technologies but happy people. Happy people is a decidedly analog goal.

Never ask people to do what you wouldn't do. This is a great test for any company. Suppose a company invents the world's greatest mousetrap. It murders mice better than anything in the history of mankind – in fact, it's nuclear powered. The problem is that the customer needs a PhD to set it, it costs $500,000, and has to drop off the dead, radioactive mouse 500 miles away in the middle of the desert. No one at the company would jump through those hoops – it shouldn't expect customers to either.

Don't let the bozos grind you down. The bozos will tell a company that what it's doing can't be done, shouldn't be done, and isn't necessary. Some bozos are clearly losers – they're the ones who are easy to ignore. The dangerous ones are rich, famous, and powerful – because they are so successful, innovators may think they are right. They're not right; they're just successful on the previous curve so they cannot comprehend, much less embrace, the next curve.

Chile should boost innovation to drive economic growth, says OECD

2007-11-12T16:36:00.000-08:00

“…Chile needs to invest more in research and development (R&D), improve its education system, promote public-private partnerships and foster business-sector innovation, notably among small and medium-sized firms, in order to sustain economic growth, according to a new OECD report… (More)

Not So Clean in Chile
“…The OECD said Chile “should promptly adopt the necessary national legislation to improve its compliance with its international obligations.” It said chile should amend its legislation to “introduce corporate liability for foreign bribery. Currently, prosecution and thus conviction of companies that engage in bribery remains impossible because companies cannot be held liable for criminal offences...”

Download OECD Chile report

America's Best Young Entrepreneurs 2007

2007-11-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

LOOPT
“…Loopt co-founder Sam Altman remembers listening to his Stanford computer science classmates yammer away on their cell phones after class, discussing their whereabouts and hatching evening plans. Altman, who describes himself as a tech nerd who was always passionate about mobile technology, imagined there had to be a more sophisticated way to track down friends. He came up with the idea of creating customized mapping software for gps-enabled phones, and dropped out of Stanford his sophomore year to turn it into a business…”

STUDIO10FOURTEEN
“…Ubong Attah describes herself as a serial entrepreneur. She ran a tutoring business in high school, taught herself web design in college, then started a web design firm her senior year called studio10fourteen, which she says is profitable and continues to operate. Ubong recently sold another business, an online jewelry shop, for around $55,000…”

BARNETT&ELLMAN
“…"We don't have to adapt to new media because we are new media,” says Tyler Barnett, co-founder of public-relations firm Barnett Ellman, which works with businesses targeting young consumers. Barnett says his definition of "new media" goes beyond social networking tools to include handwritten letters and faxes, which he says have been effective in getting attention for his firm's clients…”

TATTO
“…Lin Miao and the browns (twin brothers) founded marketing firm Tatto while students at Babson College in 2005 with a $100 investment (enough to pay for the first month's web hosting fees). Tatto's business model is simple: businesses with lots of advertising muscle such as blockbuster (bbi) hire Tatto to help acquire customers online. Tatto, using its proprietary technology, builds an inexpensive online marketing campaign to fulfill that demand. Advertisers don't pay for clicks or impressions; instead they pay when they acquire a legitimate paying customer. According to Miao, tatto serves more than 10 billion impressions to over 80 million unique users every month. He says revenues are $25 million for 2007 and expects them to grow to $50 million by 2008…”

AVANTGAUDY
“…"I'm looking to learn how to create a more socially responsible business," says Deborah Umunnabuike, a political science major at the University of Chicago and co-founder of Avant Gaudy, an online vintage clothing shop she started with her sister, Jessica, an undergraduate at Hofstra University, in the summer of 2005. The daughters of Nigerian immigrants started the three-employee business because they were passionate about clothes and saw a growing demand among their peers for vintage clothing. And they soon realized that there was a growing demand abroad as well, specifically in parts of Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia, based on analyzing web traffic to their site, almost 26,000 visitors from more than 30 countries. The sisters recruited Hong Kong native Vincent Choi to bring a global perspective to the business and better reach shoppers in Asia…”

CLIXCONNECT
“…Mitch Cohen, an undergraduate studying business at Mcgill University, started his latest company, Clixconnect, to help online retailers improve customer service on their web sites. Cohen, who started his first business when he was 16, got the idea after watching his parents become frustrated whenever they shopped online, often turning to a brick-and-mortar shop, where they relished being able to talk to a human and getting questions answered quickly…”

REDUX
“…Darian Shirazi remembers meeting facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg a week before high school graduation. He says they hit it off and Zuckerberg offered him a job. Shirazi, who had already been accepted at Berkeley, decided to do both. He majored in philosophy and worked at Facebook for a year and a half, watching it swell from 15 employees to some 250 employees, before leaving to start his own business...”

DEPARIS REDINGER
Deparis Redinger is a boutique investment bank that specializes in mergers-and-acquisitions advisory for small tech firms. Its founders, Kyle Redinger and Francesco Deparis, both did stints at Microsoft (msft) in its finance rotation program. They decided they could use their understanding of digital media to create a successful business advising startups that were at a disadvantage when negotiating with behemoths like their former employer.

AARROW
“…When Max Durovic and Michael Kenny were in high school, they had after-school jobs advertising for local businesses with sandwich board signs they strapped to their bodies and carried around the San Diego area. But the duo, who were both athletic, became bored with the traditional approach, so they started to do tricks with the signs, spinning them around and tossing them into the air to attract attention. Their antics captured prospective customers' attention. By 2002 the pair had started their own business, Aarrow advertising, with $100. They developed (and copyrighted) a number of athletic routines that involved manipulating six-foot-long arrow-shaped advertisements, turning the human wielding the sign into an advertising spectacle…”

TABLEXCHANGE
“…Tablexchange co-founder Gabriel Erbst liked eating at New York city's exclusive restaurants but often had trouble getting a reservation because his frenetic schedule as an analyst at an investment bank made it hard for him to plan ahead. Sensing that fellow professionals might be willing to pay a fee of around $20 to get a table on short notice, he launched the online marketplace to buy and sell restaurant reservations in june…”

UNIQUE SQUARED
“…"I know how crazy this sounds, but i want to be doing $100 million in sales in 15 years," says unique squared co-founder Richard Scalesse. Scalesse is excited. He says his audio equipment online retail shop, which he started with high school buddy Eugene Fernandez in a Georgia Tech dormitory basement in march, 2007, with an initial investment of about $6,000, is already profitable. In fact, Scalesse thinks total sales could hit $1 million by the end of the year…”

BLUEPULSE
“….Ben Keighran has been on the fast track since he finished secondary school in Sydney, Australia, when he was 15. After working at a web startup for a year and a half, he went on to study computer science at an accelerated schedule at the university level in Sydney. While there, Keighran got his hands on a Bluetooth device and programmed a hack for his cell phone that allowed him to use it as a remote control to control his computer's music player. He says his friends wanted him to program their phones, too, but there was no easy way to do it, because there was no universal mobile platform. So he built one ("having cut my teeth early on writing software for mobile") and put it on the web, asking for feedback and allowing developers to develop widgets for it…”

HOPEWINE
“…Forget "cause-related marketing." sure, Jake Kloberdanz knows that the success of such campaigns is hard to deny. He cites the example of Campbell soup (cpb) doubling its sales from the previous year when it printed pink ribbons on its packaging to celebrate breast cancer awareness month. But Kloberdanz, who was the philanthropy chair of his fraternity at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, wants to create a brand that donates to charity year-round. That way, he reasons, the brand isn't cheapened and customers have another compelling reason to buy the product…”

EDEN BODY WORKS
“…When she was just 11, jasmine was on her way to becoming an entrepreneur. After a chemical hair relaxer caused almost all of her hair to fall out, jasmine decided to make her own. She researched natural hair-care products online but wasn't satisfied. She found that most of them weren't all-natural products, so she put her allowance together and made her own, using ingredients such as lavender oil. "i thought i must not be the only one out there with this kind of problem,” she explains. "i wanted to share my invention with the world.”…”

HILLHOUSETAILORS
“…Shawn Liu was in grade school when his father left his job at bic and started his own ink manufacturing business out of the garage. Liu says watching his father develop his company—it now exports ink to china and employs workers in the u.s. And china—ensured "i wasn't moving in blindly" when he started his own business…”

POLINA FASHION
“…Before Russian native Polina Raygorodskaya started her fashion production services business Polina fashion, she worked as a model for major models in New York. Convinced she could create a successful business herself, she decided to put her modeling career on hold to learn more about business. She enrolled at Babson College, where she is now a senior studying entrepreneurship and marketing…”

ASR CLOTHING
“…When her counterparts in the fashion industry learn reed's age, she says they usually doubt the seriousness of her business. But that changes once they check out her line of streetwear hoodies, jeans, and t-shirts. Reed says she doesn't spend too much time worrying about her age, because she's busy running her business and majoring in retailing at Michigan state during the regular academic year and majoring in fashion merchandising and management at the fashion institute of technology in the summer. Reed expects to complete both degrees in 2008…”

UNIVERSITY PARENT MEDIA
“…When Sarah Schupp's parents flew in from Dallas to visit her while she was a student at the university of Colorado at boulder, she wanted a way to determine the best places for them to shop, eat, and stay but was unimpressed with the information available. That shortcoming led her to approach administrators at her school and propose creating a guide for parents. Even though she had no business background, they agreed, happy to have a way to connect with parents…”

FLYINGCART
“...Rishi Shah doesn't like clothes shopping. So when he was studying electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he decided to start a business that would allow users to get recommendations on what to buy based on past purchases. He envisioned national brands like the gap (gps) offering the service to their customers. Executives liked the idea, too, but in meetings told shah that they could offer such a service themselves…”

BRASS MEDIA
“…Six months into his freshman year at Oregon State, Bryan Sims' parents told him they had to file for bankruptcy. So Sims, who was on a scholarship, decided to drop out. His plan was to help his family by turning the magazine he had started (its mission was to make money relevant to young people) after graduating from high school into a profitable business. A few months after incorporating, he hired his father as chief operating officer. (Sims notes that he, not his father, is the founder and CEO, as well as majority shareholder.) The business broke even a year ahead of schedule and has been profitable since the beginning of 2006…”

YODLE
“…A few years ago, Wharton undergraduate Nathaniel Stevens was home trying to help his parents drum up prospects for their car dealership but became frustrated with the lead generation companies he contacted. He knew plenty of customers ventured online to shop but thought it was too difficult for small businesses to develop a presence there. So Stevens took a leave of absence from Wharton and started Yodle, an advertising services company that serves local businesses that lack the time or expertise to advertise online…”

AKT ENTERPRISES
“…As a member of an indie rock band while a student, Alex Tchekmeian agreed to handle his band's finances and order necessary merchandise like t-shirts and stickers. When other bands asked him for help, he agreed, starting several businesses that relied on subcontractors. He says that three years ago he started to take the business seriously, and dropped out of the University of Central Florida to devote more attention to it…”

España, a la cola europea en innovación tecnológica

2007-10-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

UE revela ranking de países en productos y servicios de innovación tecnológica
“…el “marcador de la innovación europea” sitúa a España en el grupo de “países que van a la zaga” a la hora de aplicar las nuevas tecnologías a su oferta de productos o servicios, en el que también se encuentran Italia, malta, Hungría, Croacia y Eslovaquia. Bruselas.- España es uno de los países de la unión europea que menos apuesta por la innovación tecnológica en sus productos y servicios o por cambiar la estructura empresarial para adaptarse a los cambios tecnológicos, según la oficina estadística comunitaria, Eurostat… el estudio recoge datos sobre el periodo que va de 2004 a 2006 y refleja que la situación de las empresas españolas lejos de mejorar ha retrocedido unas décimas respecto a la última medición que fue hecha entre 2002 a 2004…” (Ver más…)

España, a la cola europea en innovación tecnológica
“…la innovación tecnológica que analiza el estudio abarca conceptos tan amplios como la aplicación empresarial de nuevos descubrimientos, las patentes, las relaciones empresariales en el campo de la tecnología o la adaptación de la estructura empresarial a estos cambios. De los siete indicadores que el estudio ha utilizado para medir la innovación, España sólo destaca en la venta de productos novedosos (que representan en torno al 10% de la facturación total), aunque es superada por Alemania. Sin embargo, España suspende en la compra de bienes de equipo - sólo supera a Bulgaria- o programas informáticos. Para hacernos una idea mientras que en España se gasta en torno al 1% en países como Alemania, Suecia y Grecia se destina más del 3%... No es mejor su situación en otros indicadores como el número de pequeñas y medianas empresas que han cambiado su organización empresarial para adaptarse a las nuevas tecnologías, que han intercambiado información con otras empresas o han integrado algunos de sus departamentos para potenciar la innovación…” (Ver más)

Ideagora, a Marketplace for Minds

2007-10-28T19:48:00.000-07:00

As the late-19th century chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur famously said, chance favors the prepared mind. The same could be said of innovation. Companies face tough dilemmas everyday for which there is, somewhere, a uniquely prepared mind—someone with the right combination of expertise and experience to solve the problem. Conventional wisdom says companies should find those people, hire them, and retain them with money or perks.

But today, a growing marketplace for ideas, innovations, and uniquely qualified minds is changing the long-standing rules of innovation and talent management. Companies seeking solutions to seemingly insoluble problems can tap the insights of hundreds of thousands of enterprising scientists without having to employ everybody full-time. This shift is rippling through Corporate America and changing the way companies invent and develop products and services... (more)

Innovation is an attitude

2007-10-26T06:22:00.000-07:00

Sweden, Finland and Denmark are leading countries when it comes to innovation and economic development. Enrico Deiaco, Swedish economist and former policy expert at the European commission, explains the secrets of this success.

Mr. Deiaco, for Sweden "innovation" is everything but a new concept. The last innovation index published by the EU confirms the lead of the country when it comes to innovation, followed by Switzerland, Finland, Japan and Denmark. What is the secret of Sweden's success?
This high standard in innovation is the result of at least three factors. First of all in the late 20th century Sweden made and adopted many breakthrough inventions that gave birth to companies like Ericsson (telecommunication), SKF (ball bearings) and AstraZeneca (Pharmaceuticals) that soon grew internationally. If you compare the situation of Sweden to that of our neighboring countries Finland and Denmark for example, we have a noticeable bigger concentration of large companies. And most of our large companies were established around big inventions, which were originally developed outside Sweden but modified and marketed in Sweden. The adoption of foreign inventions and their modification into commercial products was a key strategy for Swedish companies.

Which role does the state play in this success story?
The large companies benefited from a close interaction with the state which included the promotion of flexible labor markets, competitive business conditions and favorable corporate tax regimes. An important factor was also a sophisticated procurement strategy by government which created a strong demand and created incentives for increasing business R&D. These so called 'development pairs' between large companies and state agencies created strong industrial clusters that are still successful today (more…)

Actualización Modelo Estudio Línea Base Cultura de la Innovación en Chile

2007-10-26T06:12:00.000-07:00

Bajar PDF Modelo Estudio Línea Base Cultura de la Innovación en Chile

Bajar PDF Informe Benchmarking Estudio Innovación

Gira de Innovación // Marco Polo's Journey

2007-10-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

Hola Amigos/Colegas,

De vuelta por estos lados, después de un par de semanas medio ausente por re-carga de trabajo, viajes, además de alucinado con el Pascualito, les quería contar de esa gira de exploración de la innovación que me llevó por London, París, Bruselas, Dublín, Helsinki y Barcelona en el contexto del proyecto Cultura de la Innovación en Chile, del cual les hablé en este post. Estuvo buenísima y ajetreada la gira de 10 días.

La cosa comenzó en Londres (Greenwich) donde me invitaron a un almuerzo con el director de la Business Network Research Group a discutir temas de análisis de redes (SNA), organizaciones e innovación. Nos juntamos en la Taberna Trafalgar donde, según cuentan, Dickens solía ir a comer. Al frente a lo lejos, se veía la magnífica zona de renovación urbana vía capitalismo financiero de Canary Wharf. Impressive. El lunes 17 de Septiembre comenzó la gira formalmente en París en el Centro de Sociologie de l´innovation de la Ecole de Mines donde conversamos con Fabián Muniesa acerca de los componentes socio-técnicos, materiales y políticos de la innovación. Quedó en mi memoria: “La innovación es el crisol o momento donde se redefinen tanto las categorías sociales como técnicas”. Nice.

Respecto a nuestra conceptualización e indicadores de cultura y cultura-de-innovación, Fabián hizo hincapié en claves provenientes de la llamada “material culture”: la cultura no puede ser entendida como aquello que las personas “tienen en su cabeza”, sino por su relación con objetos, esto es, el cómo nos relacionamos y usamos objetos de la vida cotidiana construye cultura(s). Y por ello, más que una Cultura, vamos a tener “culturas”. En contextos permeados por tecnologías de información, transporte y arquitectura y ecologías del yo++ (WJ Mitchell), las culturas tecno-materiales se hacen ubicuas y persistentes. Teóricamente, es la respuesta pragmática anglo-francesa a la conceptualización alemana sobre el espíritu (Geist) de la historia y la cultura. Hegel se retuerce en la tumba y Marx nos hace un guiño. También aprendí de una práctica bien francesa por lo demás, las Comisiones de Debate Público para iterar “issues” de incumbencia nacional, incluidos temas de I+D+i y así, generar controversias, anomalías y consensos de largo plazo. Quizás Bachelet se le ocurra armar una nueva Comisión de Innovación y nos invite. We’ll see. Una nota sobre esta cuestión de las controversias: basado en los estudios de la innovación de Latour y Callon, la educación-para-la-innovación se hace a través de la focalización en las controversias de una invención/innovación y en la manera que esto se hace público, imprimiendo, de paso un modelo de sociedad. Como nos alertaba Manolo Tironi en su solido post, siempre hay una ética y una política detrás de toda innovación, sea esta radical, incremental, modular o arquitectónica. La labor de los analistas, estudiosos e incluso policy makers, me parece, no es solo subirse al carro optimista de turno de ésta o aquella invención/innovación, sino que también desocultar los mecanismos éticos, estéticos, políticos que operan como sustrato. Como dice/hace Latour: “Haciendo Las Cosas Públicas.”

En Bruselas me junte con Cesar Santos del Directorate of Enterprise & Industry de la Comisión Europea, o llamado el “Cartel de Bruselas” por Castells. Impresionante ver todo el apoyo a la gestión de instituciones y políticas de innovación a través de los países miembros. Con la inclusión de los países del Este, el mercado de la EU bordea los 450 millones de personas. WOW. Tenemos que estar atentos. De cultura de la innovación, solo proxies, pero interesante que un manual llamado Paxies para el monitoreo y transferencias de buenas prácticas (que es un temon aquí justamente por los distintos background culturales). Santos también se refirió al informe Aho (Aho, ex-primer ministro de Finlandia, que dirigió el reporte llamado “Creating an Innovative Europe“, donde se abordan cuestiones de cultura de la innovación y la creatividad. Interesante ver como el mundo de la creatividad–históricamente fuera de las políticas e indicadores duros de I+D+i y Competitividad–empieza a entrar a escena: su fomento, su monitoreo, el diseño de ambientes, su incidencia y la relación con las habilidades requeridas para el emergente mundo del trabajo. En buenahora tenemos a DUribe estudiando precisamente estas cosas. Go dude!

Luego vino uno de los platos fuertes: Finlandia. Era mi primera vez por esos lares y la experiencia fue notable. Estuve en Helsinki y en sus afueras hacia el norte, Espoo. Tremenda oportunidad ir a observar y “husmear” las practicas de estos líderes-vikingos de la innovación. Por lo demás, el caso finlandés ha sido materia de debate y posteo en enjambre. De hecho, luego de esta intensa exploración, creo que se puede afirmar que tanto las condiciones recibidas (cultura) y estructura social (redes) como la voluntad política y los arreglos institucionales han sido las claves para el milagro finlandés. Ergo, tanto la visión institucionalista de ALieberman como la culturalista de ETironi explican parte del asunto. Quisiera agregar algunos elementos de complemento.

La colaboración aparece como una dimensión clave y saliente en el modelo finlandés en todo lo que se ve, husmea y analiza. Como lo he sostenido en varias ocasiones, las nuevas maneras y formas de colaborar constituyen una dimensión clave de las culturas y procesos de innovación. En el mundo actual–ya sea plano o no–las inteligencias de colaboración y cooperación son fundamentales para sobrevivir la competencia global. Es parte de lo gurú John Seely Brown y John Hagel llaman, the “only sustainable edge.” Si bien hay pre-condiciones como el gran sistema educacional público, desde finales de los 60 empiezan a haber políticas públicas, comisiones y grupos de expertos para analizar el tema. Sin embargo, fue solo en los ‘90, después de la gran crisis del colapso de la Unión Soviética –que era mercado y socio comercial de Finlandia- que la estrategia e institucionalidad de la innovación se implementa y encarna. Interesante notar que la crisis–algo similar ocurrió en Irlanda, por lo demás–funciono como “trigger” del milagro: la necesidad como madre de la innovación. Pregunta: Chile no logra articular sus políticas, sus instituciones ni sus líderes para implementar una nueva política de innovación y educación para la competitividad precisamente en el gran momento de bonanza económica …. Acaso necesitamos una crisis para dar el próximo salto?

Siendo un investigador de redes sociales, hay algo que me llamo mucho la atención y que otorga pista adicionales: El que haya uno o dos grados de separación entre los finlandeses es una tremenda fortaleza. El que todos se conozcan entre ellos es el medio recurso para el “visionando”, el “inventando”, el “colaborando” y el “innovando.” En Chile, todos (la elite, digamos) nos conocemos. Pueblo chico. Es lo que yo llamo “chonchismo”, i.e., de Chile como Chonchi). Pero no usamos este recurso, como debiésemos. En su lugar, a ratos, campea el clientelismo, corruptela o, al menos, el cierre de acceso a quienes no son familiares o amigos. Incluso a los conocidos, se los chaquetea en privado. Bad. La posibilidad esta ahí para nosotros: abrir las redes, usar estratégicamente las redes débiles (Granovetter) y sacarle el jugo al territorio compartido. De notable botón de muestra, de lo potente de estas redes socio-técnicas y del recurso estratégico de tener 1 o 2 grados de separación en un país de 4 millones de habitantes quienes tienen 3 horas de luz en invierno y en verano suelen guardarse en los “cottages” ex-urbia: La nueva Universidad de la Innovación.

En esta Universidad de la Innovación se fusionaran la Helsinki University of Technology (donde me junté con Iryo Neuvo, ex CTO de Nokia y Shosla Sulonen, un profesor geeky de ciencias de la computación), la University of Design and Arts (donde me junté con Pekka Kovernmaa, quien estará en Chile Nov 5-17, y quiero invitarlo a un lunch/talk Enjambre en Lo Contador) y la Escuela de Negocios. Fusionar y recombinar 3 universidades para crear una Universidad de la Innovación. Impresionante. Difícil, pero necesario. Hacer converger mind-sets, políticas, voluntades, intereses, marcas. No es suficiente estar en el número 1 de los rankings en competividad. Se imaginan una potencial fusión de universidades en Chile? Cuesta. Difícil. Si incluso cuesta el dialogo y la fusión multidisciplinaria dentro de una misma universidad. Mucho que aprender. Da para una columna QP.

El cierre del periplo fue en la bullente Barcelona, en la “San Francisco de Europa”, como escuche por ahí.

Me baje del avión y me reuní con el Director Ejecutivo del Parc Cientific de Barcelona, Fernando Albericio, que están moviendo la cosa en las Ciencias de la Vida. Discutimos el temon de la relación entre ciencias básicas y ciencias aplicadas que, como sabemos, ya ha sacado ronchas en nuestro país debido a la estrategia de innovación delineada por el CNIC en pos de agregarle valor a nuestra estructura productiva y las expectativas de nuestros matemáticos, físicos, biólogos, etc. Por ahí, aprendimos algunas buenas prácticas y ejemplos de generar círculos virtuosos al respecto: tener un parque científico anclado en una universidad y con mucho input de la ciencia básica, pero al mismo tiempo, tener empresas, incubadoras y fundaciones que apoyan el emprendimiento científico - tecnológico, y que “hagan hablar” al cientista básico de postdocs, papers, publicaciones que busca el Nobel con el emprendedor que busca seed-money, inversionistas, y que sueña con un IPO en Wall Street.

También conocí dos interesantísimos proyectos de innovación a través de sus Directores: 22@ (un emergente clúster urbano donde se está reconvirtiendo una zona industrial conocida como el Manchester catalán en una zona informacional de usos mixtos que alojara un clúster en media, energía, ciencias de la vida y nanotecnología) e Infonomia (un red de innovación que agrega, agrupa, conecta y difunde vía web, libros, seminarios y asesorías nodos de innovación). Este último, quizás una suerte de modelo para el futuro de Enjambre.org. Dato freak: mientras buscaba la dirección de 22@ en mi palm, el segundo hit fue un post de los plataformos urbanos :)!

Luego, de esta apretada agenda, ese fin de semana del 22 y 23 de Septiembre, tuve la suerte de que me tocaron las festividades de La Merce, con toda la ciudad en la calle celebrando. Vaya la marcha! Ahí, el consultor/asesor internacional cambio el switch y se fue a comer tapas, y a perderse en el barrio Gótico, el Raval y más tarde en el Fórum. Pero esto es ya otra historia …el 24 de Septiembre volvía a NYC y a MIT a seguir respirando un poco mas de innovación con las memorias frescas de todo aquello pasando en las Europas. Salut! CH

García, Cristóbal. “Reporte Gira Innovación-Europa: varios” en Enjambre: Educación hoy por una nueva educación [blog en Internet]. Enjambre. Santiago. 2007. Disponible en: http://www.enjambre.org/2007/10/19/reporte-gira-innovacion-europa-varios/

Menos del 6% de las innovaciones patentadas provienen de las universidades

2007-09-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

Menos del 6% de las innovaciones patentadas provienen de las universidades
"...El alto costo que conlleva tramitar una patente sumado a la falta de estímulos que tienen los académicos para producir investigación aplicada son los factores principales que mantienen estancada la generación de productos con aplicación industrial en las universidades nacionales... "Las universidades tienen la misión de construir conocimiento universal. No somos una empresa de innovación tecnológica. Hay mucho conocimiento que no tiene una aplicación concreta", asegura Pablo Pastene, director de Investigación de la U. Santa María. Su plantel, sin embargo, es el que más patentes ha solicitado en los últimos cuatro años, con un fuerte énfasis en la minería..."

Estados Unidos cambia la ley de patentes
“:..La Cámara de Representantes de Estados Unidos aprobó el viernes, por 220 votos a 175, un cambio en la legislación de patentes largamente esperado por los gigantes de la industria. La nueva ley, acogida con optimismo por la Coalition for Patent Fairness and the Business Software Alliance, que agrupa a grandes de la tecnología como Microsoft y Apple, está destinada a reducir drásticamente la lluvia de litigios por cuestión de patentes…”

Nokia se enfrenta a Qualcomm en La Haya
“…La disputa entre ambas compañías por la cuestión de las patentes comenzó el 9 de abril de este año, día en el que expiró el contrato de licencia que las había unido durante quince años. Hasta ese momento, Nokia pagaba 500 millones de dólares anuales a Qualcomm, según estimaciones de los analistas citadas por Reuters… Desde entonces, Qualcomm ha interpuesto demandas contra Nokia en Alemania y en Estados Unidos por infringir sus patentes sobre la tecnología GSM. ante el tribunal de La Haya, Nokia afirma ahora que los chips integrados en sus dispositivo son de Texas Instruments, empresa norteamericana que sí paga a Qualcomm por el uso de su tecnología. La firma finlandesa cree que Qualcomm abusa de su posición en el mercado, en la misma línea que Broadcom…”

Thomson Scientific firma acuerdo para varios años con el Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
“…Thomson Scientific, parte de The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) y destacado proveedor de soluciones de información de las comunidades de investigación y empresariales de todo el mundo, anunció hoy que el Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (Consejo de investigación científica e industrial -- CSIR, según sus siglas en inglés) ha comprado la plataforma ISI Web of Knowledge de Thomson Scientific para corroborar su excelencia en investigación y dominio en conocimiento…”

Nueve inventos que NO son obra de Edison

When It Comes to Innovation, Geography Is Destiny

2007-09-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

Dr Klas Eklund (Power Integrations Inc)

Paul Gulick and Arlie Conner (In Focus Systems Inc)

Jim Williams (Linear Technology)

Paul Brokaw (Analog Devices Inc)

Jerald Graeme (Burr-Brown Corp)

Robert C Dobkin (Linear Technology Corp)

Kelly Beavers (Datasonix Corp)

David Bingham & Charlie Allen (Maxim Integrated Products)

Bozena Kaminska (Opmaxx)

Boris Kamentser (Bokam Engineering)

Hans Hageraats and Tad Yamaguchi (Maxim Integrated Products)

Barrie Gilbert (Analog Devices Inc)

Casimer DeCusatis (IBM)

Dan Bouvier, Robert Frisch, Bryan Marietta (architects of the RapidIO Interconnect Specification)

Badih El-Kareh, Texas Instruments

AMD64 design team led by Fred Weber (AMD)

Susanne Paul, Silicon Laboratories

EinsTimer Statistical Timing development team (IBM Research)

Suresh Menon and Steve Douglass (Xilinx)

Radical Collaboration

2007-09-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

"...In an era of fierce competition, it pays to innovate communally

IBM's decision to invite in outsiders and open up the innovation process reflects one of the most intriguing concepts in corporate strategy today. Many major companies have concluded that succeeding in the 21st century requires teaming up with other companies—or even individual researchers—to create so-called innovation networks. "These networks allow companies to seamlessly weave internal and external innovation capabilities to optimize profits and speed products to market," says Navi Radjou, an analyst with Forrester Research.

Companies no longer compete simply against one another. Now alliances devoted to innovation go head-to-head. bt Group, basf, Boeing, Eli Lilly, Procter & Gamble, and IBM are the pioneers. They all have revamped their strategies to expand collaboration with outsiders. Forrester estimates that while most major companies are aware of innovation networking, only about 20% to 30% are experimenting with it, and a mere 5% have mastered the practice..." (sigue)

Modelo Cultura de la Innovación

2007-08-31T09:29:00.000-07:00

Cristóbal García en Enjambre nos cuenta su visión en el post Modelando la(s) cultura(s) de Innovación

¿Qué es innovación?

2007-08-27T14:46:00.001-07:00

The Most Innovative Companies (Top 10)

2007-08-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

1) Apple

If He's So Smart...Steve Jobs, Apple, and the Limits of Innovation

“…Everyone knows Parisians are snobs. So it probably shouldn't have come as a surprise that an unshaven, middle-aged American, speaking English and dressed in cuffed jeans, sneakers, and a worn black T-shirt, was rudely turned away from the bar at a lavish fete inside Paris's Musee d'Orsay on September 16, 2003… Except that the man was Steven P. Jobs, the cofounder and chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., and it was his party. And some bash it was. For three hours, Apple's guests grazed on foie gras and seared tuna canapes, and sipped champagne while strolling under a massive glass arcade that shelters one of the world's largest collections of Impressionist masters, Rodin sculpture, and art nouveau furniture. In a Baroque salon at the far end of the museum, a raucous jazz band played. As one guest observing the scene intoned, "This is huge."

2) Google

Google's Culture of Innovation

“…A recent article in Business Week was titled Managing Google's Idea Factory. The article listed specific steps that Google is taking to encourage innovations, which are crucial for Google to be able to compete with giants like Microsoft and Yahoo! as well as newcomers like Technorati... What do we like about their approach? Rigor and discipline It is nice that Google mentions that not only creativity is key to their success, but so are the rigor and discipline behind their approach. The company has eight brainstorming sessions each year with 100 engineers. Six concepts are pitched and discussed for ten minutes each. The stated goal is to build on the initial idea with at least one complementary idea per minute…”

3) Toyota Motors

Toyota to receive 2007 IEEE innovation award

“…The IEEE has named the Toyota Motor Corp. co-recipient of its 2007 Corporate Innovation Recognition. The award recognizes Toyota's hybrid combustion-electric power technology for its ability to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions without sacrificing vehicle dynamic performance. Toyota made the technology available to the general population though the launch of the world's first mass-produced hybrid automobile, Prius, in 1997, and revolutionized the automotive industry with its Toyota Hybrid System (THS). The IEEE is a professional association for the advancement of technology…”

4) General Electric Company

Technology: In Handling Innovation, Patience Is a Virtue

“…Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chief executive of the General Electric Company, also counseled patience, to engineers and investors. He has poured extra money into research and development at G.E. while loosening timelines on projects that may not pay off for 10 years or more. For established companies, he said, investing in emerging technologies is a matter of survival… ''I just see very clearly that unless you're out there pushing the envelope and driving innovation, you're not going to get the kind of margins and the kind of growth that we need for a company like G.E.,'' Mr. Immelt said. ''I really see it as an economic imperative…''

5) Microsoft Corporation

Powerpoint - acquired with purchase of Forethought in 1987

“…Bob Gaskins, the man who has to take final responsibility for the drawn blinds of high-rise offices around the world and the bullet points dashing across computer screens inside... his idea: a graphics program that would work with Windows and the Macintosh, and that would put together, and edit, a string of single pages, or "slides." In 1984, he left B.N.R., joined an ailing Silicon Valley software firm, Forethought, in exchange for a sizeable share of the company, and hired a software developer, Dennis Austin. They began work on a program called Presenter. After a trademark problem, and an epiphany Gaskins had in the shower, Presenter became PowerPoint… PowerPoint 1.0 went on sale in April, 1987-available only for the Macintosh, and only in black-and-white. It generated text-and-graphics pages that a photocopier could turn into overhead transparencies… Shortly after the launch, Forethought accepted an acquisition offer of fourteen million dollars from Microsoft. Microsoft paid cash and allowed Bob Gaskins and his colleagues to remain partly self-governing in Silicon Valley, far from the Microsoft campus, in Redmond, Washington… In 1990, the first PowerPoint for Windows was launched, alongside Windows 3.0. And PowerPoint quickly became what Gaskins calls "a cog in the great machine." The PowerPoint programmers were forced to make unwelcome changes, partly because in 1990 Word, Excel, and PowerPoint began to be integrated into Microsoft Office-a strategy that would eventually make PowerPoint invincible-and partly in response to market research…”

6) Procter & Gamble

"P&G: Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks"

“…Procter & Gamble's CEO A. G. Lafley has reinvigorated P&G's model for innovation. Here are the key elements he has emphasized:

Crank up one-on-one consumer research—Marketers now spend three times as much time as previously with consumers in their homes, watching the way products are used
Expand what each brand does—Broader missions for each brand have been created
Get employees from different divisions to exchange ideas—An internal R&D website and Communities of Practice have been developed
Reach outside for ideas—More ideas are being brought in from entrepreneurs, and P&G is also working more closely with other companies
Stop testing so much—Getting the product to market sooner is key
Give designers more power—Focus on the customer's experience as well as the product itself
Cater to developing markets—This includes making smarter, cheaper products and asking consumers more what they want
Know what not to do—Fat bonuses for innovation are not offered, and "stars" are not hired from outside…”

7) 3M

3M Innovation launches breakthrough fibre optic system

“…March 16, 1998 -- With an average installation time of only two minutes per socket (two fibres) the Volition™ brand VF-45™ brand duplex fibre optic connector from 3M provides 7X savings in installed cost over duplex SC connectors… The Volition™ connector has a yield of 98 percent or greater and uses a simple mechanical connection, which completely eliminates the ferrules found in conventional connectors. Constructed of a few basic parts made from injection-molded, standard engineering plastic, the connector has the same footprint density and familiarity as a standard RJ-45 connector… There are no adhesives required for installation, and no precision parts to be aligned making termination simpler and quicker than with ferruled connectors. The plug-and-socket design provides a duplex connection that is approximately half the size of the standard duplex SC interface, thus allowing higher density installations. For example, 24 of these new connector scan be plugged across the typical width of a rack where only 12 duplex SC circuits (with four ferrules and two sleeves) could fit, depending on the patching scheme…”

8) The Walt Disney Company

Digital and Wireless Innovation at The Walt Disney Company

“…In January 2001, the senior management of The Walt Disney Company made an important decision concerning its online venture, GO.com. After a lackluster performance in which the site failed to compete with other Web portals such as Yahoo!, AOL, and Lycos, the Disney Company decided to shut down the portal and revise its online strategy. Larry Shapiro, Executive Vice President of Business Development and Operations of The Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) summed up the problem: We saw there was no room at the portal table for us. Yahoo, Lycos and the others made it extremely competitive for us and we had to spend too much money to be as big and then to eventually be better than Yahoo. We decided it wasn’t worth it… As a successful $25 billion entertainment company with a universally known brand, Disney found itself in uncharted territory (Exhibit 1). Despite having an excellent track record in its various businesses including theme parks, films, publishing, and television, it was now competing in a media industry landscape that included companies such as Yahoo! and AOL which were providing a new type of media experience for their audiences on the World Wide Web. Because of the development of the Internet, which was a robust technology platform on which content could be developed, these companies were creating innovative multi-dimensional, non-linear content which could be accessed by a wide variety of users…”

9) IBM Corporation

IBM Examines How Inventors Invent

“…On a bright, warm morning at IBM's research center here, seven of Big Blue's scientists gathered around a conference table to consider a nonscientific question: What helps inventors invent things?... IBM brass had asked the researchers to design a class that could teach lab managers how to help inventors stay fresh and innovative. Quickly the group erupted with ideas for the class's title, its methods, even whether someone could fail it… Then a boyish-looking operating system programmer, Michal Ostrowski, wondered aloud if the group had made some false assumptions… "Is it innovation if everyone can see that it is?" he asked, drawing a few murmurs of agreement. "Innovation is not obvious at the time…"

10) Sony Corporation

Sony: The elixir of eternal innovation

“…Most people would not balk at the idea of jamming a mobile phone, an MP3 player, two USB data sticks and maybe even a personal digital assistant (PDAs) in their standard shirt pocket. However, this wasn't always so easy. And that's not just because these ubiquitous electronic devices didn't exist. In 1957, the 11-year old fledgling Sony, released the first "pocketable" transistor radio. There was one problem. Sony's "pocketable" radio was bigger than a standard shirt pocket. Sony's founders - Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka - had envisioned Sony salespeople smoothly pulling the radio from their shirt pocket to demonstrate the nifty device. So, instead of immediately going back to the drawing board and developing a smaller version, they had their own shirts fashioned up with larger shirt pockets to allow for the "pocketable" radio…”

Fuente: Innovation 2007, Boston Consulting Group, Senior Management Survey

+ Innovation Links

2007-08-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

Accelerating Innovation

American Competitiveness Initiative

Boston Consulting Group Senior Management Survey

Canada Foundation for Innovation

Europe Innovation Policy

Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007

Harvard's John F. Kennedy School: Government Innovators Network

Innovation tools, resources and strategies

Institute for Innovation Policy

Kellogg School of Management: Creating a Culture of Innovation

Newspaper Innovation

OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry

Permanent Innovation

Strategy & Innovation

The Babson Insight

The Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute

U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness

UK Innovation

University of North Dakota: Center for Innovation

Indicadores

2007-08-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

Índice de Sociedad de la Información (ISI)	International Data Consulting (IDC) World Times
Índice de Adelanto Tecnológico (ITA)	Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD)
Monitoreo de la Brecha Digital	Índice de brecha digital entre países (IDD) SCIADAS Orbicom (UNESCO) Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
Readiness Guide	Computer Systems Policy Proyect
Preparación para el Mundo Interconectado – Una Guía para los Países en Desarrollo	Center for International Development de la Universidad de Harvard
Knowledge Assessment Methodology	Programa Conocimiento para el Desarrollo del Instituto del Banco Mundial INEXSK Mansell y Wehn del SPRU - Universidad de Sussex
E-commerce Readiness Assessment	Cooperación Económica Asia Pacífico (APEC)
Indicadores de seguimiento	Programa eEurope. An Information Society For All del Consejo de la Unión Europea
Recomendaciones metodológicas y acuerdos sobre conceptos clave	Working Party on Indicators for the Information Society de la OCDE
Homologación de cuestionarios	Comisión de estadística de Naciones Unidas Grupo Voorburg
Propuesta de indicadores	Asociación Española de Empresas de Tecnologías de la Información (SEDISI)
Propuesta de indicadores y metodologías de recolección de datos	Conferencia de Autoridades Iberoamericanas de Informática (CAIBI)
Definiciones y propuestas de instrumentos de recolección de datos	Oficina de Censos de Estados Unidos
Homologación de metodologías y publicaciones en conjunto de los países nórdicos	Grupo Nórdico de Desarrollo de Estadísticas sobre la Sociedad de la Información
Manual de Indicadores de Telecomunicaciones	Unión Internacional de Telecomunicaciones
Propuesta de marco teórico y variables a relevar	Oficina Australiana de Estadísticas

10 faces of Innovation

2007-08-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

The Learning Personas

Individuals and organizations need to constantly gather new sources of information in order to expand their knowledge and grow, so the first three personas are learning roles.

The Anthropologist is rarely stationary. Rather, this is the person who ventures into the field to observe how people interact with products, services, and experiences in order to come up with new innovations.

The Experimenter celebrates the process, not the tool, testing and retesting potential scenarios to make ideas tangible.

The Cross-Pollinator draws associations and connections between seemingly unrelated ideas or concepts to break new ground.

The Organizing Personas

The next three personas are organizing roles, played by individuals who are savvy about the often counter-intuitive process of how organizations move ideas forward.

The Hurdler is a tireless problem-solver who gets a charge out of tackling something that's never been done before.

The Collaborator is the rare person who truly values the team over the individual. In the interest of getting things done, the Collaborator coaxes people out of their work silos to form multidisciplinary teams.

The Director has an acute understanding of the bigger picture, with a firm grasp on the pulse of their organization.

The Building Personas

The four remaining personas are building roles that apply insights from the learning roles and channel the empowerment from the organizing roles to make innovation happen.

The Experience Architect is that person relentlessly focused on creating remarkable individual experiences.

The Set Designer looks at every day as a chance to liven up their workspace. They promote energetic, inspired cultures by creating work environments that celebrate the individual and stimulate creativity.

The Storyteller captures our imagination with compelling narratives of initiative, hard work, and innovation.

The Caregiver is the foundation of human-powered innovation. Through empathy, they work to understand each individual customer and create a relationship.