InnovationCreation

Are there any innovation groups to keep an eye on?

2009-10-12T21:09:00.004-04:00

No reason not to get involved! From Gerald "Solutionman" Haman via LinkedIn:

More than 1100,000 people are members of the Top 20 (LinkedIn) Innovation Groups
1,000 people per week are joining the Top 20 Innovation Groups
The Marketing/PR/Sales Innovators Group is the 11^th largest LinkedIn Group with over 65,000 member
The Twitter Innovators Group is the largest Twitter-focused on LinkedIn with more than 11,600 members who tweet
Over 9,700 people belong to the fast-growing Green & Sustainability Innovators Group
More than 8,500 people belong to the helpful InnovationPeople Group

Problem Solving 101: Eveyone needs some inspriation!

2009-06-29T10:16:00.004-04:00

Problem-solving... This is something we all do every day. Some problems are not earth shattering ("when will I buy groceries?") and others have impacts that can change the way you live ("I lost my job and need to find a new one"). But the act of problem-solving itself is not (usually) something we learn directly as a skill. Yes, we do learn to solve problems, but most of us tend to "discover" problem-solving in the course of solving real problems. This means much of problem-solving learning is ad hoc and we miss out on the discovery of tools that can help us through the problem-solving thinking processes.

Problem-solving 101, by Ken Watanabe, a former McKinsey & Company consultant, is a short book that goes a long way toward helping everyone learn a few basic problem-solving tools and techniques. Ken shares several stories in which problem-solving tools and techniques are introduced. One example problem: the Mushroom Lovers rock band wants to drive up attendance at their shows. Ken lays out how the band seeks to identify the root cause of the low attendance and develop a series of hypothesis and solutions. While sharing the story of the band, Ken introduces techniques and tools like logic trees, action prioritization matrices, and problem-solving design plans.

The the book can be read in about an hour or two. When you are finished, you will have several methods that you can immediately use in any situation. The stories Ken shares are entertaining and you can relate to main characters' real problems. The book's graphic design enhances the stories and makes comprehending the concepts easy.

One final note: This is the type of book you will re-read and be reminded of some of the practices and skills needed to solve problems. I will have this book on my desk next to books I regularly re-read: The Mythical Man Month, Orbiting the Giant Hair Ball, and The Pursuit of Wow!

Design patterns

2009-05-25T11:40:00.003-04:00

Christopher Alexander has a set of books, all of which have super info for innovation, especially about learning design patterns and how to bring design elements together.

These three are a set that were written together: The timeless way of building, easy to get through; The Oregon experiment, also easier to get through; A pattern language: towns, buildings, construction... Thick thick book with the really good stuff. Fortunately all the books are written, on purpose, to be read where you want; Christopher suggests reading the header titles/section tiles straight through then go back to where you want to dig deeper.

Karen McGrane recommended these books during a talk at Do It With Drupal (2008 in New Orleans) as a way to learn about design patterns: Creating Usable Websites: Do It With Drupal!

SIGGRAPH Exhibit at IUPUI, April 2009

2009-04-19T23:14:00.004-04:00

I had a chat with several students about their creative and innovative designs in 2D and 3D graphics. IUPUI's ACM SIGGRAPH Student Chapter put on the exhibition to show case student work and to bring the public, employers, and other IUPUI students together to see and chat about the works.

Below are several interviews plus pics from the event.

SIGGRAPH Exhibition IUPUI April 2009great free widgetsWidgetbox

RSS feed of this audio is http://feeds2.feedburner.com/SIGGRAPHIUPUI

Flickr pics from this event may also be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/innovationcreation/sets/72157617069125850/

Invention is the mother of necessity...

2009-02-03T11:38:00.003-05:00

What is this? Is is a tennis ball at the end of a wooden broom handle that is used to quickly buff out scuffs on the floor of the Indianapolis, Indiana airport. The lady working the floors says this things works very well to remove floor scuffs and that all the cleaning staff have one of these. This is truly the implementation of "necessity is the mother of invention".

This week in the Financial Times there was an interview with Sir. James Black on "An acute talent for innovation". Sir. Black made an interesting statement with respect to pharmaceutical companies; “It’s a kind of obscenity. Very few of the drugs classified as blockbusters retrospectively were designed in that way. The people who know about markets can’t even predict what next year will do.”

Also of interest were his comments about small teams (25 people or less), that creativity is "not a method that can be learnt and taught", and there is no shortage of scientific talent, he says. “But [I am] much less optimistic about the managerial vision [of the pharmaceutical industry] to catalyse these talents to deliver the results we all want.”

The pending merger of Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical group, of Wyeth, highlights the focus of the need for "blockbusters", in the vein that a blockbuster is predictable. And yet the real energy in merging Pfizer and Wyeth will be spent on wringing out costs, making the two groups efficient, and corporate politics. One wonders if the real innovation of the Pfizer and Wyeth mereger will create is not within that combined company but outside, by those that can bring together those people "released" due to the merger, into small groups, and flying low under the radar.

My favorite line from the interview is "Anonymous peer review is the enemy of scientific creativity"... When something that is truly unique and market breaking, can you really have a peer review that is meaningful? Imagine the iPhone being reviewed by Motorola or Nokia before it was released. Peer review is great for that research or product improvement that is well known and incremental movement is being done. But in disruptive work there are few peers (hence the disruption).

“Peer reviewers go for orthodoxy...Many of the great 19th-century discoveries were made by men who had independent wealth – Charles Darwin is the prototype. They trusted themselves.” said Sir. Black

New Media Refresh, some pointers to helping traverse 2009 into 2010

2008-12-30T16:48:00.003-05:00

The end of the year is here and I am, like many of you, looking at the cross over to 2009 and 2010. To help you refresh and upgrade, here are my interesting resource picks to help refresh (re-boot?) (upgrade?).

Marketing Over Coffee. Christopher S. Penn and John Wall provide insight and usable tools for marketing in the connected digital world. Check out the The Twitter Power Guide eBook and an audio Q&A session from a Seth Godin presentation on his book Tribes.
Chris Brogan. Chris has insight on the community and social media "space". Hire Chris!. Actually, he said you could hire him or read his blog and get the same info for free!
Read E-Myth. Michael Gerber wrote about being in your business more than 20 years. Great practical reading and coaching for your business.
Edward Tufte on design. Edward Tufte, well known professor on design, has a series of books and courses that provide insight on design. He also has a very resourceful forum on his web site; check out the recent conversations on election results/data.
Trends, everyone wants to be on the front of trends. While by no means the best or first, TrendWatching.com has material that can help provide inspiration and tickle your deep thoughts on the coming future. Good tip: Know why you are tracking trends. "Trend spotting can be fun. Makes you feel in the now and in the know. But that alone is not necessarily going to make you or your company more money. The way we see it, in a nutshell, is that tracking consumer trends is one way (and there are many ways!) to gain inspiration, helping you dream up profitable new goods, services and experiences for (and with) your customers. So trend watching should ultimately lead to profitable innovation."
Check out Springwise for new business ideas. Springwise scans the globe for the most promising business ventures, ideas and concepts that are ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation. They ferociously track more than 400 global offline and online business resources, as well as taking to the streets of world cities, digital cameras at hand.
Folio...Find out what the world of the print media (magazine and newspaper) is doing. Yes, you will see info on layoffs and sell-offs in the print industry. But you will also see what those companies are trying to do. It was via Folio that I discovered the blog post by Jessica DaSilva, at the time an intern at the The Tampa Tribune. She wrote a post about the Tampa Tribune's shift in strategy and the message to the staff “People need to stop looking at TBO.com as an add on to The Tampa Tribune,” editor in chief Janet Coats said. “The truth is that The Tampa Tribune is an add on to TBO.”

Have a Happy New Year!

Service in innovation

2008-10-17T15:27:00.003-04:00

Sometimes innovation is not about the technology but the service behind the technology. Customer service, that stuff that keeps us all going back to our favorite store and what drives us away from others, can often be overlooked but it is core in our day to day buying experience.

When we at Truffle Media Networks were looking to have someone handle our book keeping, the traditional approach was to "find someone" to do it. But what do you look for when trying "to find someone"? Book keeping is a task that few people really like to do but if it is not done regularly, and done well, the work load to "catch up" can be stressful (very stressful). Sure I could do the work. But I have other items I need to do. Truffle is a media company, not an accounting company. I needed to spend my time on media and its audience.

Not knowing anything, I started with Angie's List, a service that rates various companies, gaining its input from the customers of those companies. I started calling people from a list of about 10 certified public accountants and book keeping services, all that had some level of "A" or "B" rating in Angie's List. I asked questions, I generated more, and I tried to understand how to find someone to handle our book keeping needs.

I finally narrowed the list to several people that I thought would work. One of them, Foster Results, I had received as a referral from another name on the list. Foster Results was unique on my list because they focused solely on book keeping as a service and they accomplished it all on the Internet. Many (all?) of the other people I called would be able to handle our needs but the key action I just cringed at was how QuickBooks information was shared. The main main approach was to pass a QuickBooks data file back and forth. Uggggggg.

Foster Results offered a service that allowed me to have access to the company data at the same time they did. No need to coordinate on who had the file. While this sounds like a Homer Simpson "D'oh" moment (things on the web duh!), keep in mind that the QuickBooks world has been living like this for quite awhile. It has only been in the last couple years where technology infrastructure has developed to support the needs of QuickBooks as a shared service.

What Foster Results offers is a full blown version of QuickBooks, available on line. This allows me to log on to another computer (kind of GoToMyPC like) and have access to QuickBooks at the same time as the Foster Results team. But it is the service Foster Results provides that really makes this work. Jennifer Foster, President of Foster Results, was able to have me launched on their service within a week of signing the contract. While she did advise that they plan for a 90 day transition from current processes to their process, I was fully transitioned in about 30 days.

For a monthly fee I regularly coordinate with the Foster Results point person, Julie, on what bills are due and what needs to be posted. Julie handles the postings, setting up checks to print, and handles the processing of monthly tax payments. She also handles the quarterly reporting needs to various state and federal agencies. An added benefit is that Jennifer, as a certified financial analyst and having worked at several firms as a CFO, reviews our financial state and provides recommendations.

The importance of the service is that I know required actions will be done. That service, combined with the approach of standard QuickBooks, available without having to "pass the QuickBooks" ball, and the ubiquitousness of the Internet, gives me a sense of calm that I can apply to other areas within Truffle Media.

Tresure hunters do the work!

2008-09-22T14:18:00.002-04:00

I just stopped by Goodwill to donate some books and decided to go in to see this store. It is labeled the "Goodwill Outlet Store" and I was thinking "Outlet store, Goodwill, uh???".

Was I amazed! Inside the store is a large open format space, large ceilings, and lots of floor space. Huge! And the merchandise? It is only organized in to large rolling bins by rough kind (shows, books, large items, clothes) and that is it. Normal Goodwill stores sort and order and hang items so you can shop like any other retail store. However, this outlet store, all the sorting and ordering is really done by the shoppers.

Turns out the outlet stores are the end of the line for all the items and stuff that does not get sold or moved at the normal stores. About every two hours a new batch of things arrives at the outlet store and placed in the low, long rolling bins. And you just hunt and search for things.

You can identify the "pros" right off. They are wearing gloves and moving pretty quickly. This is a treasure chest waiting for the right person to find the treasures. I asked one gentleman about this. He was wearing rubber yard gloves and was moving pretty fast through the bins. He was looking for a power supply to a laptop he bought several days ago. He says he spends a few lunch hours a week at the outlet store combing and sorting, mainly looking for great finds on electronics. He said the gloves are needed because there are items in the bins that do break and are sharp.

How is this stuff priced? By the pound! You truck your goods up to the register and they have a scale to weigh your haul.

What is really a whack in the head moment is the brilliance in how Goodwill is tapping the wisdom of the crowd to sort out the goods; You as an interested buyer will do the searching and sorting. Anything of value is sold and anything left over after several cycles is eventually hauled out as the really truly junk of the junk.

None of your Beeswax ... Ugg, did this get "tested" on humans?

2008-08-28T21:22:00.001-04:00

My wife had to order a small part for a breast pump, which only cost $3. The web site had a minimum order of $10, so she found a Burt's Bees Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Creme. This creme sounded really compelling: "Help for hard-working hands" and " Sweet almond oil, aloe and vitamin E help keep them soft and smooth". But did they really try this stuff? Ugggg.

Imagine rubbing your hands with sticky glue that smells like cherry-almond cardboard box. Once you have this on your hands everything you touch wants to stick to you. Going to sleep with this "creme" (yes, finger quoting when I say this) on your hands makes your bed sheets become marionettes as you roll or turn; they stick to you all night long. And did I mention the smell? If there ever was an Energizer Bunny logo for smell this product would have it. Yes, it lingers on and on and on and on and on and on.

Sure, this product would protect your skin ... if you had severely pain inducing cracks. This product might be useful in a survival kit to help repair leaks in tents or be the sticky part of fly paper.

The label says "Not tested on animals" ... Did any humans test this in real life? The best thing about this product? Its packaging! This is where the marketing makes the product look great, unfortunately.

Bottom line: if you like sticky hands and have really terrible skin cracks then get this product. Otherwise, use something like Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream.

Don't let branding burn your customers.

2008-08-18T15:19:00.001-04:00

This last May I wrote about my experiences with Starbucks' "Get more of what you love with a Starbucks Card" campaign (my post). I believe they have gotten this straightened out now. When I order a soy mocha, I don't need to remind the barista that my card is registered and they don't have to figure out how to process the card. Order, converse with barista, pay, done.

However, there is one part of this campaign that does still irks me ... This campaign is not accepted at all Starbucks. Huh? What do you mean not all Starbucks? Aren't all Starbucks alike? No and here's the rub.

There are Starbucks that are what I call "company" stores. They are Startbucks stores owned and operated by Starbucks. These stores are in the vast majority that people see. Then there are those that are "fake" Starbucks. They look, taste, and smell like any other Starbucks. Except they don't have to accept all the same promotional campaigns that Starbucks as a corporation is running. For example, the Starbucks in the Indianapolis Airport or the Starbucks in the Las Vegas Convention Center are not "real" Starbucks.

True, the employees dress and act like Starbucks employees. They have the same products and marketing material. They both even take the Starbucks store card! But that airport or convention center Starbucks do not participate in the "Get more of what you love with a Starbucks Card" campaign. I don't know why and I really do not care. What irks me is that Starbucks has me so trained on their brand that when that brand fails me I feel miffed, let down, abandoned.

Abandoned? Ok, this may sound a bit harsh. But those "fake" Starbucks are ruining the Starbucks brand: I have come to expect a certain level of service, consistency, process, and taste with what I order (tall decafe soy mocha, extra hot). I am a regular. That regularity is reinforced with my Starbucks card and my actions to register it (registering it gets me free soy milk, knocking off $0.40 each drink). When that regularity is disrupted then that causes me to feel like I have been cut off, shown to the door, not part of the culture. When I order a tall decafe soy mocha, I expect to have the price of the soy removed. And when that does not happen I will, on the next order, now have to monitor the drink making process. This requires my time and attention that I really would prefer to spend elsewhere.

So if you are thinking about brands and how to allow those brands to be licensed out / franchised, insure the plan includes education of the impact of drifting from that brand and what could happen to the revenue. Don't make licensing / franchising your brand result in a flesh burn for your customers.

Clean plate

2008-08-06T13:13:00.001-04:00

Just so you don't think I was a bit off on writing something about crumbs, I found these bits of crumb related items:

From Patent 7,375,141, Soluble carob, The depolymerization may be carried out in a reactor provided with a mixing system suitable for handling fine powder, that is to say powder with a particle size of around 20 to 200 .mu.m, so as to prevent the formation of crumbs. As nonlimiting examples, mention may be made of LODIGE-type reactors, and ribbon mixers.

Patent 7,353,952, Insulated compartmented lunch bag, Additionally, any crumbs or stains from eating are contained on the interior side or surfaces of the major compartment 120. Thereafter, major compartment 120 may be closed to hide the said crumbs or stains therein and out of sight.

and two I thought were interesting:

Space Station Christmas, She looked at the swarm of crumbs and saw why NASA packaged crumbly foods in bite-sized morsels -- or avoided them altogether.

Astronauts wrap up space station work, Reisman, meanwhile, can’t wait to get back to his wife, Simone Francis, and, to a lesser degree, their cat Fuzzy. He’s also looking forward to “a good slice of pizza” and some bread, banned from the space station because of crumbs. He’s had to settle for tortillas in orbit.

And if you really want to learn more, NASA Facts: Space Food, has some info on crumbs.

Thanks to Kim Williams, Amy Stark, and Lorraine Ball for their additions to the crumb list.

Ok, brainstorming, the kids way...

I spent last week at Camp Invention at Pike Township's Fishback Elementary School. This is a program by the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation, run all over the country, to provide kids age 7 to 12 with hands-on activities, brainstorming, experimentation, and unbelievable action. My involvement was to help the kids during the invention time.

All the kids (and parents) were told to bring a "take apart" item, from which they would, over the course of the week, build an invention. The younger kids (ages 7 to 10) were to think about some job or activity that really bugged them and come up with an invention to do the job or make the activity fun. The invention did not have to actually work, they just had to build a concept.

The older kids had to build a Rube Goldberg device, in a team setting, that would break a water ballon on a target, using at least four steps, two simple machines, a part from each of the team member's take apart item, and once the machine was started its process no additional human assistance could be given.

Some interesting observations about the kids:

Kids will try anything. One boy insisted on using white glue to hold together material (LOTS of glue:) even though nothing was sticking (the items were too heavy for the glue. So he used more glue! One team of older kids found some foam tubing to make a marble launching system as part of their balloon breaking system, even though the foam tubing was not originally part of the supply kit.

Older kids start to get constrained by implied teacher direction but younger kids don't let directions get in the way. Some of the direction by teachers and coaches seemed to bind the teams in a design direction they may or may not have realized was needed. I found my self imposing my view of design on the kids works by the way I responded to how a kid would build something.

Scope creep occurs even in kids projects! The older kids rules received a few implied rules: the balloon had to go through the air (fly) and the target could be horizontal or vertical. These new implied rules came out during a discussion on what is to happen. When one kid asked about if the balloon has to fly through the air, a teacher said "yes" even though it was not stated on the rules.

It was a fun week and the kids learned some things. Hopefully they will get to practice their abilities to make things as school starts up in the next few weeks.

Pics and video of inventions.

Follow-up on brainstorming: practice session on crumbs

2008-07-22T08:50:00.002-04:00

In the past I have mentioned the need to practice brainstorming (The terrible word of "Brainstorming"). It is important to practice, like anything you do, otherwise you will loose skill or never learn any new ones.

So to really get in the habit you need to practice regularly. This means finding opportunities to practice generating (the brainstorming part) ideas. The opportunity can be everyday issues. I recommend finding something simple at first; don't overwhelm yourself with the major things yet ("Increase revenue by 50% in Q4"...:) Also, don't stress out. It is just practice... But do try to push yourself a bit every time you work through a problem/idea generation session.

Here are some working rules:

State your issue or problem and be clear in the issue/problem statement.

Number all your ideas as you capture them; this is good to help know where you are in the generation process (have I reached 100 ideas?) and it helps when refering to a specific idea.

Aim for a specific number of ideas in a set amount of time, just to set a goal. It's like setting your marathon time goal; you need something to target.

Do not evaluate the ideas as you capture them. Just capture them. Evaluation is a different activity.

Build on captured ideas to create new ideas.

Fast Company has an article (Seven Secrets to Good Brainstorming) with the rules expanded a bit and with much better copy around why the rules are needed.

Ok, here is my first challenge.

Crumbs on the floor irritate me. It just bugs me. Some foods crumb (is crumb a verb?) more than others. Couscous is a major crumb generating food (by definition!). Those folks with any kids knows the truth about crumbs: kids are super crumb generators! My seven year old son somehow always misses eating over his plate and food crumbs hit the floor like steel to a magnet: fast. So my problem is personal (should I loosen up a bit?). To help define my problem a bit more: The crumbs bug me because I walk around the house in socks and crumbs that collect on my feet feels all wrong to me.

So the problem can be looked at several ways: How can I stop crumbs from happening, How can I prevent them from sticking to my feet, or how do I make the crumbs just "disappear"?

Just clean up the crumbs.

Serve crumb free food.

Have person who make the crumbs clean them up.

Have a crumb eating pet.

Have a floor with a grate in it to allow crumbs to fall through to the crumb pit.

Have vents on floor that suck up crumbs as they fall.

Let the crumbs fall on the floor and build up the floor to a solid footing.

Have another person clean up the crumbs to remove self from the annoyance.

Have a strong suction pull crumbs off the food as it is eaten.

Have a plate that has ability to make crumbs stick the the plate.

Have a built in sucker on the plate for the crumbs.

Buy a Roomba robot cleaner.

Have a device worn by person while eating food that sucks crumbs up as food enters mouth.

Put down a crumb matt to catch them all up.

The fork has the crumb sucking device build in.

Waiter comes by after each bite and cleans up (is this what crumb waiter is?).

Floor has ability to absorb the crumb due to some fluid / crumb dissolving agent; crumbs disappear when they hit floor.

The floor is a conveyor belt that whisks the crumbs away.

Slats in the floor rotate every few minutes to dump crumbs in to the crumb pit.

Electrostatic crumb attraction device grabs crumbs as they fall.

Crumbs are cleaned up with a special "crumb duster", sort of like a feather duster for crumbs.

I have special crumb vacuums in my "socks".

After reading this list I am sure a few of you have some ideas to pitch! Remember, don't evaluate, just get those ideas flowing.

After reading this list I am sure a few of you have some ideas to pitch! Remember, don't evaluate, just get those ideas flowing.

Kids "sell" lemonade for free to help the community

2008-06-27T22:24:00.008-04:00

In 1992 I discovered a game called Capitalist Pig, a Mac based business simulation. It was simple in its approach yet still allowed for discovery of running a business. Beside the software, the designers included a funny and yet practical book with business terms explained through selling lemonade. It told the story of starting a company whose initial core product is lemonade and expanded to talking about franchising, hiring employees, and competition.

I was reminded of this book this morning when I was on my way home from IUPUI. On the corner of Barn Hill and Michigan, a group of summer students from the IUPUI Center For Young Children (CYC) (ages 5 to 7) were waving a banner and shouting "Free Lemonade! Free Lemonade!". I recognized the teacher, Mr. Patrick, and pulled up to see what was up. The kids were on a campus field trip to "sell lemonade". However, their tactic was to give the lemonade away and ask for donations for kids programs! According to my son (he attends summer camp at IUPUI CYC) they raised about $190 today!

This is an interesting connection; Yesterday I spent time with some friends in the Smaller Indiana Indy Business Book Club discussing Smaller Indiana's role in the community. One of the questions on Pat Coyle's mind is if Smaller Indiana might be better as a non-profit entity or as a full speed, for profit business. The really interesting dialog was what Smaller Indiana is doing today: groups of people are meeting, going to events together, putting on events, having coffee, etc. The people within Smaller Indiana are pulling together for common activities, interested in helping others, and seeking to make a living (make money).

The connection from Capitalist Pig, to IUPUI CYC kids giving away lemonade to make money, to Smaller Indiana? Smaller Indiana is "giving away" the pipes (lemonade) to connect people and conversations. These people happen to be a pool of people that non-profits like to engage for community good (looking for volunteers, donations, ideas, and action : the donation). Smaller Indiana is a conduit to these engaged people. Non-profits need to invest in Smaller Indiana because the "pipes" of conversations, ideas, and actions is leading to community good.

Another angle to think about: for non-profits to engage a marketing or PR firm to create messages and marketing campaigns to engage people would cost more than if the pipes of conversations were put in place for free and have community people utilize them. Something to think about.

Weather information, new media approaches to getting old style info

2008-06-22T20:59:00.000-04:00

When I hear the term "new media" I think of cool and interesting, possibly fun and something I want. Interestingly, the term new media is about media that is new today. In the mid 1990's there was a magazine called "NewMedia" which covered all the things happening on the web. At that time, the new media of the day was what ever was on the web. Any web site could claim to be new media. The ability to put up information on a network that allowed anyone in the world to see it was way different than the current media of the time; print, radio, TV.

Think about how you were informed of events in the agriculture industry in the late 1980's or early 1990's: newspapers, magazine, radio, TV. National Association of Farm Broadcasting, Farm Journal, or Feedstuffs anyone? These networks of media brought to you via snail mail or the airwaves info you needed to manage your agribusiness. Piles of papers and audio reports on the hour required you to pick and choose, pull info together, and make sense of it all manually.

As technology advanced, so did the ability of ag information to get to you in a streamlined fashion. Companies like DTN tapped into early electronic networks to bring all the information you needed straight to your computer (everyone remember those Apple II's?). While this still required some personal effort to integrate the information, electronic services started to remove the barrier to information access and understanding. This became the "new media" of the time. The same types of information yet presented and discovered in a whole different manner.

Today the new media has evolved to include finding and delivery of audio and video. While audio and video on the internet has been around since the mid 1990's, the process by which this type of media reached you has changed. No longer do you need to concern yourself with figuring out what to do with the files and how to listen. Service like DirectTV, Tivo and iTunes make obtaining shows like SwineCast or AgToday simple.

New media has also expanded on how information is presented. A great example is weather information: weather reports used to be static; look on the back page of the paper and see the 5 day forecast. Or, tune into a Brownfield Network radio station to get the recent weather report. Now weather reports come in all sorts of flavors, from old school media (the 5 day forecast in the Indianapolis Star still is handy), to the Weather Underground, the Weather Channel, and the US government's Aviation Weather Center. Each of these are pulling from a standard set of data sources and adding new methods for interpreting, understanding, and using weather information.

There are even services that supply, for a fee, weather information to speciality industries in a form that is delivered faster, provides usable analytics, and expert option on actions to take. Planalytics and Weather Services International are two such weather information service companies, offering to the ag industry tools to help make decisions. These methods of discovery, presentation, and understanding are the "new media" today.

Marketing from the age of 1

2008-06-18T11:11:00.003-04:00

I am getting a taste of push marketing from my 8 month old and 7 year old sons! Yes, my sons are practicing the art of marketing... Funny way to think about it but it's true. My youngest will jump up and down in his saucer when he is happy (providing me a message that says "I am happy right now"). Later he will perhaps change marketing messages and start to whine a bit, telling me to start getting that food lined up or else.

My 7 year old son also is practicing the art of marketing. He does have the advantage of fine tuning his message with actual words I can understand. They can be direct ("may I please have desert?") or subtle (he gets all his toys out on the floor to imply he is going to play right now even though he really should be putting things away). Other times he co-brands his message ("Mommy said I could have a snack").

My favorite youth marketing technique is the shout / scream method. This is when the original message is not well received so the message is modified and delivered in a high volume, sometimes over some distance ("DADDY.... DADDY..... CAN I GET MY TOYS OUT OF TOY JAIL??? DADDY!!!!" delivered from the top of the stairway) When that high volume shouting does not work the tone of the message is modified almost instantaneously ("I AM GETTING MAD IF YOU DON'T GET MY TOYS OUT OF TOY JAIL!!!"). Then the message is combined with some good old fashioned meeting time ("DADDY" as he stomps downstairs and grabs my hand and drags me over to the toy jail (top of the fridge for those that are interested) and then hangs on my hand while continuing verbal message "I WANT THAT TOY BACK!").

Now imagine what you are doing with your customers / potential customers and your messages. Are you shouting? Have you dragged your potential customers around by the hand and told them what to do? Are you saying please? Did you even offer the opportunity to ask why? Have you been doing this time and time again and getting so response? Have you felt ignored?

The best kid marketing tactics are when they come up and say things that are totally unsolicited, spontaneous, and in the end not really asking for anything but saying thank you ("Daddy, thanks for the Indiana Jones Lego set, I really love it..." ... "Will you play with me?") OK, they sometimes tack on a request that is sometimes hard to turn down :) So say "thank you" in a simple way to your future customers.

Some great starting points to learn:

Chris Brogan "Five Tools I Use for Listening"
Seth Godin "Useless marketing"
Chris Penn "The Most Effective Marketing A Non-Profit Can Do Is Build The Database"

Don't be a 1 year old!

Semi Random links of coolness

2008-05-31T10:28:00.003-04:00

Here are some links of coolness I found in an older folder. Amazingly the links are still good and relevant!

First is Electric Sheep (sounds like a Wallace and Gromit invention) software that is used to produce artwork. Electric Sheep is "a cyborg mind composed of 60,000 computers and people mediated by a genetic algorithm".

Second is Bathsheba Sculpture, who makes really impossible sculptures because she can! Impossible in that with out software and high tech manufacturing techniques (3D printing) these sculptures would not be possible.

Third is Rhinoceros, a modeling and design software tool that can be used to make all sorts of things, from buildings to techo art.

These three links are tied together (implicitly) by a proposal titled "Master of Fine Arts in Software" by Richard P. Gabriel, noted computer scientist and lisp expert (he created the Gabriel Benchmarks to compare lisp systems). This proposal is about "... the traditions of Computer Science and Software Engineering have tried to turn all aspects of software creation into a pure engineering discipline when they clearly are not. The MFA in Software would begin to repair this error."

The Rhinoceros, Bathsheba Sculpture, and Electric Sheep links above are sample of what one might learn and accomplish through the study of fine arts in software.

Make a decision

2008-05-25T16:38:00.005-04:00

It is way better to get a "Yes" or a "No" from a client or customer than it is to get a maybe. I personally have been on both sides of this and understand the issue of making a decision and trying to avoid risk.

In my current roll I am helping bring new ways to make information sharable and available via podcasts (SwineCast being an example). This is a "new" way to share stories; "new" in the sense that technology (sharing of content via RSS feeds, time shifted conversations via podcasts) is making it easier to produce a show and share it widely.

So when I heard (I use Audible to listen to books) this bit from Seth Godin's Small is the New Big about getting people to say yes or no, not maybe, I was all behind what he shared. It is better to get a yes or a no than a maybe. Think about those times when you suggested an idea and a "decision" maker said "maybe". Think about those times when you asked someone out and they responded with a "maybe" answer ("I'm busy this week" or "I have a lot of things to do").

Here is the short clip (about 10 min) from Small is the New Big that talks about one of Seth's sales people working to get a senior leader to step forward and make a decision.

So step up, be bold, get out there, make a decision!

Double click Play button below to listen to audio on line.

To download an MP3 version to your desktop, right click on link below and save to your local computer.
Short Seth Godin: "Small is the New Big" audio clip.

Run with these thoughts

2008-05-07T13:05:00.003-04:00

Every once in a while I have these thoughts that are entertaining and interesting.

One of those times occurred this last weekend, when my son was playing with TamTamJam on his OLPC. I got to thinking "why does the ice cream truck play the same same same annoying music as they drive around?" Why couldn't the music be composed by the neighborhood or be pulled from the creative commons world? Let it be entertaining and impressionable! Vote for the music as the truck stops to sell ice cream. This is a great target for an assumption challenge.

The other thought was from an email I was sending to Chris Brogan. I started the note " I hope you are recovering from recent travels." and got think about the word 'recover'. Do you ever 'recover'... How about 'recharge', kind of like an iRobot Roomba, where we seek out our home to plug back into the energy of home, family, comfort food, and the stuff you love to do.

Life Science Startups, getting people people involved

2008-05-05T21:03:00.002-04:00

There is great interest in Indiana on life sciences. Over the last five (or more?) years there have been many local groups formed (Indiana Health Indutries Forum, BioCrossroads, Indiana Biomedical Entrepreneur's Network, Indiana Life Sciences Initiative ) and some VC / grant money (21st Century Fund, Indiana Seed Fund, more...) raised to capitalize on hidden / latent resources and talent within the state's life sciences hot spots.

As part of the next phase in creating life sciences companies in Indiana there are educational resources being applied to help raise awareness and interest in starting companies within the research community. In Indianapolis this means the Indiana University School of Medicine and other schools/departments at IUPUI.

Recently there was a seminar series on IUPUI's campus on starting a life sciences company. Krieg Devault, an Indianapolis law firm, had a panel present information to IUPUI students, staff, and faculty on company legal structures, intellectual property, and venture capital. Good intentions possibly bored to death the audience... Yes, it is important to know about company structure (LLC vs S Corp vs C corp) and intellectual property. But these are dry topics at best and are not really the core of starting a company.

The real core of starting a company is: what is the product, how do I develop it to a product that can sell, who is going to buy it, and how to I find those people interested in buying my product? With out a product idea and an understandting of how to advance that product then corporate structure and patents on research techniques do not a company make.

How to help those really interested? Gather up a few people really interested in taking an idea to market, coach them regularly, give them some cash to get things done, and work through the idea development to product development.

One great model is Y Combinator. Paul Graham formed Y Combinator after selling Viaweb to Yahoo! His goal was to create a whole new, fresh approach to turning ideas into products by investing in small teams with low dollars and bringing great, smart people together for several months in a campus setting to build out multiple ideas. Sure, there was venture capital and legal structures were setup plus intellectual property was created (and protected). But the core of the Y Combinator purpose is to bring people together to percolate and filter out the ideas to usable products.

Can we create idea teams or idea camps that form around possible marketable ideas to prototype, explore, refine, weed out, and advance ideas to real things? What is needed?

Space: idea teams need a space to mess around with their ideas and a place to tinker. Nothing big but it needs to be theirs for a few months.

Small funds (initially $1,000 to $5,000). Money to help get stupid stuff, things to get ideas moving, prototyping tools, etc. More on money below.

Coaches to poke and prod. Cheerleaders to encourage. There is always a need for optimists and idealists. And people that are able to bring out the left turn of an idea.

Carrots to pull people out of their shell of research. Indiana is a conservative state when it comes to "risk" and "taking a chance". Y Combinator lives in communities where starting a company on a whim of an idea is normal. Indiana is not that place so there is a need to intice the hesitant.

Action and speed. Take idea, prototype it, experiment on product, and get to a decision point (kill or move on) as quick as possible. Not every idea will work and not everyone is cutout to start companies. This needs to be discovered soonest and move on.

Small note on money: Yes, VC money is needed at some point but within a university research environment there is a need for small dollar funding to help move lab research to a possibility of a viable product. Examples include spending small dollars on market research and business plans, product development, mock-ups, prototypes, etc. Not all ideas are suited to being commercial products but there is no need to seek large scale dollars to discover this.

Personal experience ruins Starbucks card "innovation"

2008-05-05T09:55:00.004-04:00

About three weeks ago Starbucks rolled out their "Get more of what you love with a Starbucks Card" campaign. Simple enough: register your Starbucks card and get free syrup and milk for your coffee. Since I tend to get soy mochas this meant saving 40 cents every cup. Easy sell for me.

So I immediately registered my card. That was easy.

But these last several weeks has been a poor experience for me. At every Starbucks since (about 8 to 10 times since registering), I have had to remind the barista about the program. Three times I did it after they rang it up, not realizing that the register card program does not go all the way to Starbucks point of sale system and "know" to not charge me for the soy milk... Each barista was very helpful and refunded the 40 cents, but the process took about 5 min because of the "refund to card" process.

After three times I started to advise the barista that I had a registered card before the sale. This confused several baristas as they did not know about the program. After I showed them the promotional material sitting on my side of the cash register, they had to figure out how to ring up the order then account for the soy milk being "free". This took several minutes and in some cases a manager/team lead had to assist. At least twice the barista gave up on the process, refunded the whole drink, and gave it to me on the house.

This is not an "Ah Ha" innovation but more of an incremental innovation. The design of the card campaign is not that revolutionary. Certainly it will capture more customer loyalty and data about people from the registration. And it offers real value over time to the customer at little cost.

However, this straight forward incremental innovation fails in the experience. I dread having to tell the barista about something they should already know. I feel irked that the technology of the card should already "know" my card is registered and make the transaction invisible. And for the baristas the experience is one of frustration as they try to live up to their mission ("Apply the highest standards of excellence to the purchasing, roasting and fresh delivery of our coffee.")

Innovation score

concept: great
design: good
execution: so so
experience: irk-some

Please stand by, this is only a test. Do not change your channel ...

2008-04-23T12:37:00.003-04:00

I am running an experiment on posts and their effect on Google Alerts. How long does it take for something to show up in the stream of all things Google?

My test words

Truffle Media Networks
swinecast
beefcast
dairycast
cropvillage
poultrycast

Traditional thinking versus fast moving / work with the crowd

2008-04-22T23:51:00.002-04:00

Quick note, just back from seeing several examples of Translating Research into Practice at IUPUI. One person, Mark Kelley, shared a story of how companies are working to leverage university medical research and making it easy to do.

Genentech has a program that helps university researchers request proteins, antibodies, and cDNAs from Genentech for their studies via their Affiliate Research Programs. Easy to do, web based, and it works! Genentech realizes they can not do all the research themselves and there is probably someone out there doing research from which Genentech might benefit.

This is compared to companies like Eli Lilly and Company that would require you to know someone personally inside Lilly and that inside person would have to know how to get a material transfer agreement setup, approved, and executed. This requires time to call, meet, and meet some more. Not web based; not focused on reducing the barriers to discovering new data, research, or ideas; and not tapping that crowd of people already working on problems Lilly might need solutions to!

Gold mine of innovation topics

2008-04-13T22:12:00.002-04:00

I found some really interesting and entertaining material put together by Legg Mason Capital Management. These are a series of thought leader forums that have some really cool presentations and sketches by Sente Corporation.

Of interest are the talks by Alph Bingham (Extracting Information from Networks) and W. Brian Arthur (Nonequilibrium Economics and Where the Economy is Heading).

These seminars span from 2004 to 2007 and several have video available on web. The concept cards and posters by Sente add a really helpful function of pulling out the big ideas/concepts and make them visual. Great stuff!

So you want to leave Lilly....

2008-04-11T09:56:00.011-04:00

So you want to leave Lilly... Here is my list of things to know before doing that.

Family support is important! This usually means being able to provide basics things like health insurance, money to buy food, making the house payments, etc. It also means helping your family understand why you leaving Lilly, a place you may have been with for many years, is important to you.
Be honest with your reasons for leaving. The grass is not always greener "out there".
Have several plans in play. If you are leaving with a job already in hand, great! If it means leaving with several startup ideas being developed, great! Don't leave to just quit and get away. Planning helps.
Be flexible. Things may not pan out. Plan B or C may be needed. Don't stick to a plan if the plan is not working; adjust and move forward.
Who you going to call (think theme from Ghost Busters here)? Nothing you do can be done alone, period. You will need the help of many people. Getting a job, developing an idea, finding resources... They all require some help from someone else. Knowing who to call before you need to call helps. This would also be called "build your network". Some local (central Indiana) networks to join: Women & Hi Tech, IBEN, IHIF, TechPoint, Smaller Indiana. Each of these groups have many smaller sub groups that will certainly have something of interest to you.
Who you going to call, part 2... Many others have left Lilly and done well. Seek them out to learn their story.
Be persistent. Getting people's attention is always difficult. You need to be persistent and committed.
Let go of the culture of Lilly as soon as you can. This one is a hard one to do. You need to operate as your own person, not an extension of what you were while at Lilly. The longer you were at Lilly the harder this might be.
When you leave, stay connected to Lilly... Huh??? Yes, many of the connection you made at Lilly while there are still connections to maintain and develop. Lilly may become your customer, may be a source of ideas, or may be a place to work in the future! Lilly even started a group for those that had left Lilly, the Lilly Alumni Network, to help maintain your connection.

I used to work for Eli Lilly, first as a contractor then as an employee from January 2000 to March of 2006. Working at Lilly provided lots of exposure on how organizations work, access to many people, and venues to discover and participate in new ideas.

I started at Lilly in the law division, helping support product liability litigation. Over the course of my time at Lilly I was loaned out to the Indiana Information Technology Association (INITA, now part of TechPoint) to lead the careesINsite program, went in to the depths FDA regulation and computer systems validation implementations, and I helped create innovation via the e.Lilly organization.

e.Lilly is where I discovered that I really wanted to pursue ideas that were not core to Lilly's business. I did not consider myself a Lilly lifer (i.e.; I did not plan to retire from Lilly). I knew I wanted to start a company and and the many projects at e.Lilly were input to helping me understand what was involved and what the potentials were.

Here are a sample of several of the companies started at e.Lilly: InnoCentive.com, YourEncore, Scienteur, Coalesix, maaguzi, Chorus, Seriousity, Collaborative Drug Discovery, and Indigo Biosystems. I was also exposed to discussion and project design around information markets (NewsFutures), internal wikis, effects of people networks, application of Wisdom of Crowds, and podcasting.

After about 2.5 years at e.Lilly, Alph Bingham (e.Lilly's VP), announced his retirement and by the fall of 2005 new management was running e.Lilly. The philosophy and approach of e.Lilly changed and I realized that it was no longer the warm, cozy home that I enjoyed. This was the time to launch out and take on some ideas to develop.

I had some contacts, some ideas, and I put in place the steps to leave by March of 2006. My family was supportive of me leaving and starting a company so in March of 2006 I started full time on developing an innovation consulting company. Using what I learned while at e.Lilly, careersINsite, and my five years as a volunteer with the National Center for Creativity (helping kids with creativity, problems solving, and team building), I set out building InnovationCreation. It took perseverance, boldness, luck, and regular practice to get clients. Starting a small business has many hurdles but I felt I was prepared to tackle them.

Along the way I had the opportunity to develop one of the ideas started at e.Lilly as a stand alone company. The idea experimented at e.Lilly was utilizing the internet and iPods to deliver relevant information to swine vets and large swine production farm managers. In mid 2006 I helped form Truffle Media Networks to commercialize the idea. By the end of 2006 I felt that Truffle Media Networks would be better suited to me spending 100% of my time on. So I slowed down the InnovationCreation development and concentrated on Truffle.

Here it is April 2008 and I am still running both companies and both are paying well enough to continue my current path. Share your story or your three key points on leaving Lilly. Let's have lunch or coffee!

Get this wallet if you want some conversation!

2008-03-21T10:23:00.004-04:00

I wrote about the Tyvek Wallet from Dynomighty Design Inc in early February and mentioned I received lots of questions and complements:

"Is that a wallet?"
"Wow, that is a cool wallet!"
"Tyvek??? What's that?"
"Is that an envelope?"
"That is a pretty neat wallet, where did you get that?"

I still get questions and comments about it. Just this morning the Hubbard & Cravens barista asked me what my wallet was made of. I told her about the wallet, how I got it, who made it, and where she could get one. So in one conversation I mentioned Dynomighty Design, Tyvek, The Indianapolis Museum of Art, and my family. So one product elicited a connection multiple interests and levels, to me of course. When was the last time you got that from your wallet?