The Innovation Road Map Travelogue

New blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:45:00 -0700

A new blog is at http://incollaboration.ning.com

Technological Substitution in Publishing: Part 7 – Electronic Media

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 5 Jan 2008 12:24:00 -0800

There are multiple substitutions occurring within the media for K-12 classroom instruction. Modular software and video are loosing market share. Comprehensive courseware is gaining market share now, but will reach its peak of market share in about 2010, and then begin to decline. Online courseware is gaining market share now and will reach a penetration of 60% by 2020.

Data: The Complete K-12 Report, Education Market Research, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 & 2001

Technological Substitution in Publishing: Part 6 - Basel Products

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:00:00 -0700

It would appear that the electronic substitution for print in basal education products has begun. While the data indicates that the substitution is in the early stages, it does seem to indicate that it has begun. The data source for this is suspect as it is the results of two surveys without guarantee that the two survey populations were representative samples. Research in the field of substitution analysis generally agrees that if the substitution reaches 5%, the substitution models are accurate.

Technological Substitution in Publishing: Part 5 - Supplemental Products

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:14:00 -0700

The educational supplemental products market is fragmented and complex. However, at a very high level it is possible to discern substitutions that are occurring. Print based supplemental products are in a steady decline. Other forms of supplemental products while increasing for a while, never gained a large market share and are now beginning to decline in market share. Electronic media based supplemental products are steadily increasing and will reach 90% of the market in 2020.

Technological Substitution in Publishing: Part 4 - Supplemental Instructional Materials

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 9 Oct 2007 15:49:00 -0700

In “A Study of the Grade K-6 Supplementary Instructional Materials Market”, the authors use instructional time used as a measure of the penetration of various materials and technologies. This is a much better surrogate measure of the penetration of new technologies and concepts into the market as it doesn’t depend upon the cost of the technology or material. (This approach should be the basis for a thorough study of the substitutions ongoing in the education arena.) However, the data is limited. What is does show is that CDROM and the Internet are gaining share of instructional time at the expense of other media, as shown in the graph below.

Data: Study of the Grade K-6 Supplementary Instructional Materials Market, Hagen Marketing Research Inc., Lois Eskin Associates & Professional Publishing Services, 2004

Ultimately, it appears that the Internet will be the primary method for computer based instructional delivery.

Technological Substitution in Publishing: Part 3 - Student Device Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:11:00 -0700

Student devices have changed from desk top to lap top over the years, and are now changing again to other types of devices. This substitution is summarized in graph below.

Data: America’s Digital Schools, The Greaves Group & The Hays Connection, 2006

While the number of data points is small, the data fits the Fisher-Pry model well, and supports common knowledge. Desktops are in decline and laptops have reached their maximum penetration of the market. Other types of student devices are rapidly gaining share of the market. While there is data presented in America’s Digital Schools on a number of other student devices, with the limited number of data points, it was impossible to segment the other device category. However, thin client, handheld, cell phones and portable gaming devices seem to be on the decline. While, tablet PCs and student appliances are gaining market share.

Technological Substitution in Publishing: Part 2 - Reference Library

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 8 Sep 2007 09:59:00 -0700

Substitution analysis is a powerful tool to examine and forecast the substitution of one technology for another. In this case, the substitution is electronic media for print media in the reference library. The surrogate data that we have is that provided by Association of Research Libraries. It is not the complete world of expenditures on reference materials for libraries, but it is representative, at least of the big libraries. The data that ARL provides is a measure of expenditures. This is a useful surrogate for the number of units, the number of users or the amount of material, all potentially more direct measures of the substitution. However, sales figures are quite often used as they provide an aggregate way of indicating the impact of the new technology on the market.

It is also important to note that there are multiple substitutions going on in a cascade of change from print - CD, LAN and Internet, to just name a few. If data were available on this level of detail, a multiple substitution model could be created.

The Fisher-Pry substitution model is often used to analyze a substitution like electronic for print media in the reference library. The relationship between the fraction of total market taken by the new technology, f, is often given as:

f = 1 /(1 + c exp(-bt))

where t is time, and c and b are empirically determined coefficients. In this case b and c were determined from the data provided by Association of Reference Libraries for the years 1992 to 2004.

When these data are analyzed utilizing the Fisher-Pry method, the graph shown in Figure 1 results. It clearly indicates that the substitution of electronic for print is well underway in reference materials. The crossover point will occur in 2008 and 90% substitution will be achieved ten years later.

Figure 1. Data: http://www.arl.org/

Taking 1990 as the beginning of the substitution, and the middle projection, the time to 90% substitution by electronic media will take 28 years.

One of the interesting, and most insidious aspects of this type of substitution, when the substitution is taking place in a growing market, is that a large percentage of the substitution has taken place before the old technology sees two successive years of decreased revenue. This is the case here as well. Fifty percent of the total time to 90% substitution has elapsed before the print media have experienced two years decline, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

There is an additional substitution going on and that is collaborative user generated content for traditional organized, hierarchical development and production. The reference industry is a pioneer in this substitution in Wikipedia. This is a substitution within the electronic reference resources, and unfortunately we have no data to indicate how this substitution is progressing. Revenue is not a good surrogate for this type of substitution as the results of the Wikipedia effort are available for free. The only possible measure would be the number of accesses or amount of time that people use Wikipedia versus other traditional reference resources. Wikipedia is certainly growing fast (Figure 3), in spite of professional criticism of the quality of the effort. Figure three indicates the growth in the number of English articles. The number of English articles is projected to be:

2007: 1.7M
2008: 4M
2009: 8.5M
2010: 18M

Figure 3. Source: Wikipedia

The transformation of the reference library has not been completed. There are many factors, trends and driving forces that could affect the future of the reference library. I think that the two most important trends affecting the future of the reference library, and by association, the reference publishing industry are: search engines vs. indexed collections, and proprietary vs. open content creation.

Search engines select information to be delivered to you based on your keywords matching them to the content of documents it searches, based on the algorithm of the search engine. It does not deliver the information that is "best" for the purpose of the researcher, as a reference librarian would, nor does it verify its authority, as indexed and abstracted peer reviewed articles/books/reports does. Most search engines will deliver documents that are current, are used frequently and are linked to my other documents (a type of authority measure). What search engines provide is quick, cheap access to over a billion web sites in the world. Given the high costs of the traditional system, and the rapid improvement of search engines, I see search engines providing a lot of the services now fulfilled by reference librarians, and the reference publishing industry.

Technology Substitution in Publishing: Part 1 - Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 5 Sep 2007 08:44:00 -0700

Information technologies (hardware and software) are playing a key role in innovations in industry after industry. They diffuse through an industry by improving procedures, processes and products. The diffusion usually begins with incremental changes aimed at improving costs, or more broadly, efficiency. This is like a virus infecting a living cell, the informed or informatized (we don’t have good language to describe the result) is transformed into something new. Informed segments of the economy then multiply their effects on the industry radically changing it or destroying it.

The publication industry is one of the industries being so affected. Information technologies have found their way into the processes of printing books, their distribution, the way they are sold, and even the way we communicate about the books. Now information technology is altering the very nature of publications, especially in the textbooks and supplemental materials used in K-12 education. And, now the information technologies developed to aid social change and societal development have begun to impact the industry, threatening to destroy it.

This series of eight blog entries summarizes the meta research done on the industry searching for data that indicates the nature and rate of substitution of information technologies into print. There are two overall conclusions from this study. First, that there are indications of the substitution going on in a number of areas. And, second, that we lack a coherent set of data on the industry that would enable us to make firm predictions.

Substitution analysis is a well accepted method of technological forecasting in use for 36 years. In these analyses, the Fisher-Pry model was used. The Fisher-Pry model predicts characteristics loosely analogous to those of biological system growth. It results in a S-curve (more formally, sigmoidal curve) familiar to many because the curve is in the shape of an S. These natural growth processes share the properties of relatively slow early change, followed by steep growth, then a turnover as size asymptotically approaches a limit.

The Fisher-Pry substitution model is often used to analyze a substitution like electronic for print media in the reference library. The relationship between the fraction of total market taken by the new technology, f, is often given as:

f = 1 /(1 + c exp(-bt))

where t is time, and c and b are empirically determined coefficients.

Keeping Austin Wyrd

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 11:53:00 -0700

Note: This essay is about the city I live in - Austin, Texas.

When I first heard the unofficial slogan for Austin, "Keep Austin Weird", I was turned off. The word "weird" had too many negative connotations for me. But, then I remembered an old mythology that I had written about in March, 1989 for Creativity!, a now defunct IBM magazine*. And, some conversations with Natalie Shell (http://www.natalieshell.com/) helped connect the two concepts together and I decided to do some further research. I now understand that the concept of "wyrd" is exactly right for Austin. What do you think?

Once upon a time

A great tree grew in the earth by a pool of water that was spring fed from the bottom.
The tree was known as the "World Tree" in some customs, "Tree of Life", or "Word Tree" in others.
The pool of water nourished the tree’s roots.
The tree dropped water from its leaves back into the pool.
The pool was known as the "Well of Wyrd".
The pool was tended by three women whose names meant:
All that has gone before,
How the past shapes the being now, and
That which should become.
The "Well of Wyrd" is layered with past life, represented by the dew from the tree.
And, is constantly being replenished and stirred by the spring at its bottom.
Those who drank from the pool gained wisdom.

The Anglo-Saxon word "wyrd" is derived from a verb, "weordan", to become, which in turn is derived from the Indo-European root "uert" meaning to turn. Wyrd literally means that which has become.

In a wider sense, "wyrd" refers to how past actions continually affect and condition the future. It also stresses the interconnected nature of all actions, and how they influence each other. In metaphysical terms, "wyrd" embodies the concept that everything is turning into something else while both being drawn towards and moving out from its own origins. "Wyrd" can be thought of as a process that continually works the patterns of the past through the patterns of the present into the patterns of the future.

By the way, Shakespeare borrowed from this mythology when he created the three witches in Macbeth:

"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble."

The cauldron was the well of wyrd. Stirring the well of wyrd created chaos. And, the three women became witches, who were weird. Hence our modern connotations.

The concept of "wyrd" is complex and deeply ecological. The system of the well and the tree is obviously ecological with respect to the physical world. But, by deeply ecological, I mean that it also applies not only to the physical system, but the social, spiritual and information systems as well. It is "glocal" as well involving the individual and all of humanity. Our past, ancestral and experiential, affects us continually. Yet there is the interplay of our personal wyrd and the universal wyrd and the role we must play in creating our own destiny. We interact with that which has become to create personal patterns that affect and are reflected in the universal patterns. These universal patterns then exert forces that shape our lives.

The patterns created by individuals at a certain time and place create the sprit of the community that shapes the beliefs and behavior of everyone in the community. Every action we take, or don’t take, will have implications for own future choices as well as the future choices of others in the community. Therefore, we have ethical obligations to think carefully about the possible consequences of everything that we do. We are affected and constrained by our past actions, but we are constantly creating what should become through our reaction to present situations.

The three young women tending the tree and the well don’t just simply represent the past, present and future. They stand for:

all that has gone before
the process by which what has gone before and its bonds and connections shape the being that is now
the obligations that exist between people, that must be fulfilled, that shape the present being into what should become

Barton Springs Pool is our Well of Wyrd archetype. It is a physical manifestation of the process of wyrd. We get constant reminders of our past actions and their impacts and constraints on the pool. It is spring feed, but our present state of being produces water that flows into the pool, often polluting it. Dedicated people have fought hard to maintain the obligations we have to each to each other and the future to at least keep it as it now is. As an archetype of our community and its spirit, the pool should be protected, sustained and nurtured. It’s no wonder that people who swim in the pool regularly speak of it as a spiritual experience. It is a spiritual place.

If it is safe to drink the water from the pool, drinking of it should provide wisdom if one reflects on why the water is safe to drink.

I don’t think we’ve done as well on the social, spiritual and informational aspects of our wyrd. We do have a history center, but what about modern history? I don’t think anyone is studying the process of how we have become who we are. And, I’m equally sure that no one is thinking about the network of obligations we have to each other and how that should shape our future.

Keeping Austin wyrd has to become more than an unofficial slogan. It has to become how we perceive, think and act.

* I republished this essay on my blog (http://www.innovationtravelogue.blogspot.com/200)6_11_01_archive.html).

iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 3 Jul 2007 07:52:00 -0700

When I moved from Wappingers Falls, NY to Austin, TX in 1980, I was moving from one IBM location to another. I was supposed to have the position of Technology Manager for the IBM Austin site. I didn't find out until I got there, that the position was filled. So, I had some time to get acquainted with the technology important to the site. Austin had been a second source manufacturing facility for typewriters and was transitioning into electronic hardware software systems, then in the form of word processors.

I did a research project on the key technologies important to the future of systems similar to word processors and concluded that they were all going to merge - audio, visual, text, electronic communications, and all digital. When I tried to communicate that to Austin IBM executives, I was met with blank stares. I might as well have been from Mars.

The iPhone has finally done just that. And, there's still more to come. Watch what happens when TV goes all digital.

Opportunity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 7 May 2007 08:32:00 -0700

The first announcement I heard upon entering the terminal of Chicago’s O’Hare airport was that it was illegal to solicit transportation at the airport. After getting my bag and walking towards the taxi stand, a man dressed is a suit solicited me for a limousine ride to downtown. After a brief bargain on the price, I accepted his solicitation in order to get a clean, well kept car. I figured that if the car was a nicely dressed as the driver, it should be an improvement over the taxi. I was not wrong.

On the drive into downtown Chicago, which took almost an hour, the driver made various business deals over his cell phone taking notes on scraps of paper. The one that caught my ear was his attempt to find out about a car wash for sale in McAllen, Texas. I am from Austin, Texas and have done some consulting in the area. He was trying to find the owner or real estate agent, and he patiently, but persistently, would not take “I don’t know” as an answer. After several phone calls, writing notes along the way, and flawlessly driving in Chicago traffic, he finally got the name of the real estate company offering the property. He still had to get that number and the follow that lead.

I asked him if he was trying to buy the car wash. He said that he was. I asked if he had ever been to McAllen. He said that he had and that his cousin lived there. It was his cousin who gave him the lead to a car wash for sale. I volunteered that the McAllen area was still fast growing and that real estate values had held. McAllen is on the border with Mexico and has benefited because of trade with Mexico. He said that that was what his cousin told him and that real estate values in Chicago had dropped by 30%.

As we drove on in silence I looked out the window and saw a sign from the Bank of America that had two messages on it that changed:

Opportunity is everywhere
If you know where to look.

I’m not so sure it’s knowing where to look, but knowing how to look that is key. Opportunity can be right in front of you, but if you can’t see it, it’ll do you no good. Yogi Berra was right when he said, “You can see a lot just by looking.”

Did I mention that this guy was from the Mid East? I’m not an expert, but I think he was speaking Arabic on the phone to a friend. His English was good and he was demonstrating many of the characteristics of an entrepreneur. I’m sure he will do well.

Maybe Tom Watson, the founder of IBM was right, when he adopted as his vision in the 1930s, “World peace through world trade.”

Market Driven Innovation: A Systematic Method to Focus and Encourage Innovation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:19:00 -0700

This chapter argues the need to focus on efforts to produce effective and efficient innovations and presents a new approach to target those innovation efforts. It proposes a market-driven innovation methodology as a means to approach the organization's opportunities and threats.
Paul Schumann & Donna Prestwood

From: Innovation Management: Concepts and Cases, edited by B Sujatha, ICFAI Books, 2006

Innovation History of the Automotive Industry

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:41:00 -0700

View Video (wmv, 4MB, 1 min)

This is a compressed view of the innovation history of the auto industry from the 1820's to the 1970's. The innovation profile is displayed as a matrix of nine different types of innovation as described in Innovate! The cycle is repeated three three times in the one minute video. For more information about the history read below. For more information about the innovation model, visit The Innovation Roadmap

History
A classic example illustrating these observations about innovation strategies is the U.S. automobile industry. There were five major stages in the development of strategy in the auto industry from the 1820s until the 1970s.

Experimenters and Hobbyists: The Early Days
The search for a self-propelled wheeled vehicle began with Cugnot's steam-powered tricycle. Other technological competitors followed, with internal combustion engines and electric motors providing energy sources. During this period the fastest car was, surprisingly, an electric vehicle.

From the 1880s to the 1920s there was a rapid proliferation of different versions of the automobile. Hundreds of companies were created, each with its unique approach. Carriage shops in many cases acted as the incubator. To own a car during this period required daring and at least a modicum of mechanical ability. Purchasers were the early adopters, experimenters, and hobbyists, who weren't concerned about repairing the frequent breakdowns, and certainly not totally dependent on the auto as a means of transportation or business. There were few roads, and those were of poor quality.

The breakthrough innovation of Cugnot resulted in many distinctive and incremental product innovations. Competitors were searching for the right technologies and the right configurations to meet market needs. The thrust of this innovation activity was breakthrough and distinctive product innovations. There was not a lot of focus on process or procedure innovations.

Search and Learn: The Development of the Ford Model T
When Henry Ford began his search for the perfect car, there was still a great deal of technological uncertainty. No one knew for sure which engine type would win. Certainly no one knew which configuration would best fit the market. Ford went through a process of searching, trying different configurations of internal combustion engine autos, to find the car for the "common man." The "Model T" designation was not capricious but the result of trials A through S, which culminated in 1908 in the Model T. The major innovation strategy during this period was a continuation of the distinctive product innovations of the past, along with a movement toward incremental product innovations.

A Car for Everyone: Exploiting the Model T
Ford correctly recognized that the driving forces for change in the United States were creating a need for cheap, reliable, independent methods of transportation. He correctly understood that if he could rationalize the manufacturing system and drive the cost down, he could capture a large share of the market. To improve the reliability and decrease the cost, Ford instituted a series of product, process, and procedure innovations:

• Product innovations
Four-cylinder engine (cost, efficiency)
Works completely enclosed (more reliable)
Durable (stood up to bumps)
Reliable (didn't strip gears)
$825 price (competitors', $2000)

• Process innovations
Reinforced-concrete factory with windows /skylights
Interchangeability of parts
Moving assembly line
Task/part segmentation

• Procedure innovations
High pay (double competitors)
Nonstop eight-hour shift rotations

The results of all of these innovations plus an incredible number of subsequent incremental innovations produced impressive cost reductions.

An example that has been reported shows the depth of the rationalization. Ford requested that gears be shipped in wooden boxes, and he specified the dimensions of the pieces of wood in the boxes. This wood was just the right size to be used as is for the floorboards of the cars. Ford had all the cars painted black, and all the parts black. This maximized the interchangeability of the parts, simplifying inventory. The joke was that you could get any color Model T you wanted as long as it was black.

The results were impressive. Ford created the auto industry and dominated it for years. Some people even credit him with the creation of the consumer society we live in. He made the cars cheap enough to be purchased and paid the workers well enough that they could become consumers.

Ford took the results of what he had learned about the product design and configuration and focused on breakthrough, distinctive, and incremental process and procedure innovations.

Spectacularly successful as this strategy was, Ford made the mistake of believing in it too much. On his deathbed, he is reported to have said that the only thing wrong with the Model T was that it stopped selling.

As Abernathy and Wayne have pointed out:

"The strategy of cost minimization single mindedly followed with the Model T was a spectacular success. But the changes that accompanied it carried the seeds of trouble that affected the organization's ability to vary its product, alter its cost structure, and continue to innovate."

From Rural Utility Vehicle to Living Room on Wheels: GM's Response
Environmental forces were at work in this market to create change. People's social values were changing. They wanted more choice, more comfort, more luxury. Women were becoming drivers, and the open carriages and hand-crank starter were definite drawbacks. People began to have more disposable income and attached status to the type of automobile they owned. Porter explains that:

"The classic example of the risks of cost leadership is the Ford Motor Company of the 1920s. Ford had achieved unchallenged cost leadership through limitation of models and varieties, aggressive backward integration, highly-automated facilities, and aggressive pursuit of lower costs through learning. Learning was facilitated by the lack of model changes. Yet as incomes rose and many buyers had already purchased a car and were considering their second, the market began to place more of a premium on styling, model changes, comfort, and closed rather than open cars. Customers were willing to pay a price premium to get such features. General Motors stood ready to capitalize on this development with a full line of models. Ford faced enormous costs of strategic readjustment given the rigidities created by heavy investments in cost minimization of an obsolete model."

GM took advantage of Ford's preoccupation with an obsolete strategy and developed cars for everyone. They offered different price ranges, flexibility of choice, optional features, and a host of technological innovations, not the least of which was Kettering's electric starter and battery system. Alfred Sloan, the founder of GM, was quoted by Abernathy and Wayne as saying,

"Mr. Ford ...had frozen his policy in the Model T,...preeminently an open-car design. With its light chassis, it was unsuited to the heavier closed body, and so in less than two years [by 1923], the closed body made the already obsolescing design of the Model T noncompetitive as an engineering design ....

The old [GM] strategic plan of 1921 was vindicated to a "T," so to speak, but in a surprising way as to the particulars. The old master had failed to master change ....His precious volume, which was the foundation of his position, was fast disappearing. He could not continue losing sales and maintain his profits. And so, for engineering and marketing reasons, the Model T fell .... In May 1927 .... he shut down his great River Rouge plant completely and kept it shut down for nearly a year to retool, leaving the field to Chevrolet unopposed and opening it up for Mr. Chrysler's Plymouth. Mr. Ford regained sales leadership again in 1929, 1930, and 1935, but, speaking in terms of generalities, he had lost the lead to General Motors."

While GM certainly produced many process and procedure innovations, the principal innovation strategy was a return to a distinctive and incremental product innovation thrust. As a result of correctly reading the driving forces for change and interpreting their impact on consumers, GM dominated the auto market for a number of years. However, as Abernathy, Clark, and Kantrow point out, even when imports began to make inroads,

"The comfortable maturity into which American automobile makers drifted during the 1950s and 1960s kept all such potentially disquieting questions at bay. Like their counterparts in other manufacturing industries, executives in Detroit felt they had found the key
to unlock forever the boundaries of a secure domestic market. Their confidence was soon to cost them dearly."

Synthesizing Market Demands: Development of Toyota
In the 1950s and 1960s there were new driving forces for change. The United States was being suburbanized. People were fleeing from the inner cities and were in the process of creating the present‑day megalopolises of Los Angeles, Houston, and Atlanta, to name just a few. The car became essential to get around cities that were created by and for the car. But even more than that, the people left in the suburbs needed a second car. People had enough disposable income for two cars but would have liked to have a smaller, cheaper car for the second car.

There was a niche entry at the low end, Volkswagen, and the German manufacturer found a very successful niche market. Detroit tried to respond by building small cars, but found that it could not produce small cars cheaply enough to compete. The only way that Detroit could take cost out was to reduce quality, and that produced some disastrous results and eventual return to the big-car formula. To quote Abernathy, Clark, and Kantrow:

"In retrospect, then, we can see that Detroit's early flirtation with a new calculus of automobile design and production was at base a continuation of past practice, a somewhat half-hearted attempt to view the competitive dynamics of the industry in different terms. Just how strong a grip the logic of large car production had on the industry can be seen in the compacts' steady increase in size and weight during the years they were in production. Indeed, each year seemed to bring a few more inches and a few more pounds until, by the late 1960s, even a once trim car like the Falcon had added a foot in length and 500 pounds in weight. Detroit, in effect, first tried to build small cars by making little big cars."

Detroit's insistence on following its old business theory caused a backlash. There were attacks on the quality and safety of the small cars, and a general discrediting of the large U.S. automakers. Kotler et al. describe the situation:

"The U.S. automobile companies ignored these warning signals and continued to build larger and more expensive regular automobiles. This total ignorance of consumer demand led to significant negative car buyer attitudes-a pro-foreign, anti-Detroit syndrome. As Donald Peterson, vice president of car planning and research for Ford's Product Development Group, observed: "People believed that we make too many changes for change's sake-i.e., non-functional changes. There's a credibility gap. People don't believe our advertising. It has done more harm than good."

Toyota was watching. They saw the success of Volkswagen, the driving forces for change, the changing needs of auto buyers, and the power of innovation to redefine the small auto with quality. As Kotler et al. state,

"As strategic planners of the highest order, the Japanese aim their marketing efforts, not at where the competition is situated, but at where they think the competitive battlefield will be in the future."

Toyota did extensive market research in the United States using Volkswagen as the prototype. They used U.S. market research firms and U.S. data, and beat us at our own game. Their first entry, the Toyopet, was not a success, but they stuck with their new business theory and the result was a restructuring of the market.

Toyota focused on distinctive product, process, and procedure innovations. Then their thrust was incremental innovations across the board. Eventually, Toyota became the market leader.

Becoming Your Company's Futurist

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:11:00 -0700

View the Video (wmv, 147 MB, 72 minutes)

Market research is in the cross hairs of change. Demographic, sociopolitical, technological and economic forces are driving significant, maybe even revolutionary, change in your industry. In times of systemic change, you have to ask yourself the question, "Does my company need a prophet in order to have a profit?" I think that the answer is a resounding "Yes!". In this talk I will establish some steps you will have to take to become your company's futurist. I will discuss three steps - how to develop insights about the future, how to use those insights to become competitive, and how to become a futurist. In addition I will briefly describe the potential business opportunity of strategic market research for companies in your industry.

Paul Schumann is a practicing futurist with expertise in creativity and innovation. He has lived long enough to see forecasts fail and succeed, including some of his own. He had a thirty year career with IBM in three very different arenas - as a technologist and technology manager in semiconductor technology, as an internal entrepreneur creating the first independent business unit within IBM, and as a cultural change agent developing a more creative and innovative culture. Since retiring from IBM he has been consultant as a business futurist with programs in creativity and innovation. He is the founding president of the Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society (http://www.centexwfs.org/). And he is member of the Advisory Board to the MRA, the Austin Center for Community-based and Nonprofit Organizations and the American Creativity Association. More information about Paul can be found on his web sites - http://www.theinnovationroadmap.com/ and www.glocalvantage.com.

Talk given at Competing in the Research Coliseum, 20th Annual Joint Conference, Southwest Chapter, Marketing Research Association, 4/7/06

Autobiography in Five Chapters

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 07:12:00 -0700

Chapter One:
I walk down the street and there's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless. It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two:
I walk down the same street and there’s the same deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it and I fall in again. I can't believe I'm in the same place. It takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three:
I walk down the same street and there's the same deep hole in the sidewalk. I see that it is there. I still fall in. It's a habit; but my eyes are open and I know where I am. I get out almost immediately.

Chapter Four:
I walk down the same street and there’s the same deep hole in the sidewalk. This time, very carefully and cautiously I manage to walk around it.

Chapter Five:
It occurs to me to walk down a different street.

Not sure where this came from originally. I've had it around for over twenty years.

It sure seems to apply to my life, but I'm always cycling between Chapter 3 and 4...

The Future of Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 4 Apr 2007 08:57:00 -0700

Listen to Paul Schumann Respond to questions from Tom Carroll on the future of strategy:

Note: all files are mp3 and range in length from 0:49 to 13:30 minutes

What is corporate strategy?

What does it mean to have an effective strategy?

Are there some best practices to develop strategy?

What should an effective strategy include?

Who should be involved in developing strategy?

What is the 'knowable future'?

Are there new techniques to develop strategy?

What are some global trends important in developing strategy?

Were you surprised when you understood about the speed of technology development?

Are there some global companies who exhibit good strategy?

What are some first steps in developing strategy?

How can people contact you?

What do you think is the most important question in the world now?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 3 Apr 2007 14:33:00 -0700

Note: This was a question posed for a number of Conversation Cafe's recently. The following is my answer.

I think that the most important question facing the world now is how to create a set of values that transcends, but can be accepted by, the world’s major spiritual traditions, ethical systems and cultures while supporting simultaneously pluralism and integration. Without some shared values, we cannot have a world conversation.

Omar Khayyam had an answer to this question when he wrote in the Rubaiyat:

"The Grape can with logic absolute
The two and seventy jarring sects confute…"

By confute the translator probably meant ‘argue away’ or he could have meant confuse.

Of course Khayyam also wrote about wine:

"…I wonder often what the vintners buy
One half so precious as the wine they sell."

Khayyam would probably be surprised to find that the answer in today’s world is not the wine that is sold, but the process of selling and buying, or business, that is having the most successful conversation in the world. Is it the values of business that can be shared over most of the world? Are our global conversations going to be business?

When confronted by Marley’s ghost in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Scrooge comments on Marley’s condition – captive, bound and double ironed – not comprehending the reason for his condition, "But you were always a good man of business…"

The ghost responds, "Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

Science, and technology as well, have established a successful global conversation. Are secular values the only ones that can deal with the two and seventy jarring sects?

Religion and politics seem to have had the most difficulty establishing a global conversation. Violence seems to be the value of this global conversation.

Ecology may be the conversation for today’s environment. It is based on science with strong components of technology and business, and it embraces the values of life, common to most of the world. The realization that we are all affected by the environment, individuals, business and governments, coupled with the fact that anything anyone does, or doesn’t do, affects everyone else, could drive the values of ecology toward the forefront of the world’s conversation.

What do you think?

A Formula for Sustainable Global Prosperity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 07:29:00 -0700

Listen to Interview (mp3, 27MB, 1 hour)

David Pearce Snyder, Life-Styles Editor of The Futurist magazine, is a data-based forecaster whose thousands of seminars and workshops on strategic thinking have been attended by representatives from most of the Fortune 500 companies, and from local and federal government agencies, educational institutions and trade associations. Before entering private practice as a consulting futurist in 1981, Mr. Snyder was Chief of Information Systems, and later, Senior Planning Officer for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, where he designed and managed the Service's Strategic Planning System. He was also a consultant to the RAND Corporation, and served as an instructor for the Federal Executive Institute, and for Congressional and White House staff development programs. Mr. Snyder has published hundreds of studies, articles and reports on the specific future of a wide range of U.S. institutions, industries and professions, and on the socio-economic impacts of new technologies. He is the editor/co-author of five books, including Future Forces and a sequel, America in the 1990s, both published by the American Society of Association Executives. He has appeared on Nightline, the Today Show, CNN, MSNBC, and the BBC World Service.

The common assumption that the Information Revolution will create a new generation of high value/high pay rank-and-file jobs remains an article of faith that is not reflected in current hiring patterns or official long-range employment forecasts. To the contrary, routine workplace activities are increasingly being automated, infomated, and commoditized, reducing the need for skilled labor. Simultaneously, macroeconomists expect that international competition made possible by free trade and our new global infostructure, the Internet, will increasingly drive local labor markets worldwide to pay comparable wages for comparable work. But real revolutions arise from the bottom up, and a confluence of spontaneously adopted technical innovations and collegial workplace practices is currently foreshadowing a grassroots reinvention of work itself that can be expected to increase the value added and the income earned by rank and file employees. What is emerging is an absolutely unexpected yet intuitively compelling social invention, open collaboration, uniquely capable of mobilizing the creative capacities of workers everywhere to exploit the productive potential of information technology, and to address the growing inventory of social, economic, environmental and biomedical challenges confronting the future of human enterprise.

David Pearce Snyder
Consulting Futurist
The Snyder Family Enterprise
8628 Garfield Street
Bethesda, MD 20817
301-530-5807
david@the-futurist.com
www.the-futurist.com

Extreme Creativity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 07:18:00 -0700

Listen to Interview (mp3, 15MB, 30 minutes)

How will the practice of creativity be a driving force in the future world of work? What role can we play to take advantage of the current uncertainty to leverage creative thinking? What are the links between strategic and creative thinking? How do you totally engage the brain in the creative process? Come and engage your brain in this thought provoking session that will stimulate your thinking!

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi is CEO of Herrmann International, publisher of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) which is based on extensive research on thinking and the brain. Multiple applications of whole brain technology include creativity, strategic thinking, problem solving, management and leadership, teaching and learning, self-understanding, communication and team/staff development. Ann seeks to apply the principles of whole brain technology to her varied responsibilities: from day-to-day operations, to sales, to workshop design and presentations. Having resided in Europe for 13 years, Ann brings a global perspective to the company. Since joining Herrmann International USA 19 years ago, Ann has expanded the network of international offices to 16, spanning Europe, the Pacific Rim and Latin America.

Her personal goal is to promote better understanding of how individuals and organizations think and become more effective, as well as enhance learning and communication technologies worldwide through the application and development of whole brain concept. Ann is an advisor to the American Creativity Association, and has served such clients as Bank Of America, Coca Cola, General Electric, BMW, Target, Cintas, Cisco Systems, Hallmark, IBM, Milliken, Novartis, the US Forest Service and The Wharton School, Vanderbilt, as well as many educational groups. A powerful and highly energetic speaker, Ann has delivered keynotes and large group presentations around the world including events for ACA, CPSI, ASTD, ISA, American Planning Association, Training, the International Alliance for Learning and Innovative Network.

Herrmann International, celebrating its 25th year in 2006, was founded by Ned Herrmann, a Past President and founding member of the ACA and major contributor to the association for many years before he passed away in 1999. Ned, a physicist by education, was Manager of Management Education for General Electric where he began his groundbreaking study of the brain, creative human development and learning which resulted in the formation of the HBDI. The HBDI has been used worldwide to profile individuals’ learning and thinking styles and preference in accordance with brain theory. Herrmann developed and validated the HBDI and the Whole Brain Model while at GE, and designed several workshops that are internationally recognized for their use of cutting-edge creativity-learning models. Herrmann authored several books outlining his findings, including The Creative Brain published in 1996; The Whole Brain Business Book, published in 1998.The work of the North Carolina company has been featured in O Magazine, Business Week, USA Today, Discover, Scientific American and the Harvard Business Review. Herrmann International, with affiliates world-wide, continues to research and develop products and applications in the fields of thinking, creativity, leadership and learning.

Prisoners of Our Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 10:42:00 -0700

Listen to the Interview (mp3, 19 min, 9MB)

Drawing on his book, Prisoners of Our Thoughts: Viktor Frankl's Principles at Work (Read a Book Review, PDF), Dr. Alex Pattakos underscores the close relationship between creativity and the human quest for authentic meaning in life. Indeed, the intrinsic motivation to "actualize creative values" is one of the primary sources of meaning that defines our human-ness. Moreover, the will to meaning is based upon our individual and collective willingness to be held responsible--for our attitudes, our beliefs, and our behaviors. In this regard, Dr. Pattakos calls for a new paradigm that connects creativity with responsibility. In other words, we not only have a responsibility to be creative and to inspire creativity in others, but also to ensure that our personal and collective creative outputs are "responsible" and seek to make a positive difference in the world.

Dr. Alex Pattakos, affectionately nicknamed "Dr. Meaning," is the founder of the Center for Meaning and a principal of The Innovation Group, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. He has had a long-standing passion for creativity as an academic (he began teaching creativity courses at the University level in the early 1980s), as an author (he's published extensively on the relationship between creativity and learning within complex organizations), and as a practitioner (he's worked in/with the government, corporate, and nonprofit sectors). In 1986, he received the "Creativity Award" from the University of Maine for his pioneering work in distance learning. The World Future Society credited him with inventing the concept of the "Electronic Visiting Professor" and IBM showcased his work as an innovation in academic computing.

More recently, Dr. Pattakos has integrated his passion for creativity with the emerging discipline of Innovation Management (see: www.seedsofinnovation.com ). Among his recent publications is the book, Prisoners of Our Thoughts, already translated into eight foreign languages, which applies the wisdom of his mentor, Dr. Viktor Frankl, to contemporary work and personal situations and provides a meaning-centered platform for innovative action. In addition, he is a member of the Honorary Advisory Council for the Statue of Responsibility Foundation (www.SORfoundation.org ), which seeks to erect a Statue of Responsibility monument, an idea that originated with Dr. Frankl, on the West Coast of the USA (as a "book-end" to the Statue of Liberty) by the end of this decade.

Alex N. Pattakos, Ph.D.
Principal, The Innovation Group
223 North Guadalupe Street, #243, Santa Fe, NM 87501-1850
(505) 820-0254 (direct)
alex@themeaningdifference.com
www.themeaningdifference.com
www.seedsofinnovation.com

Whither the Creativity Clan: Challenges for Global Solidarity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 07:38:00 -0700

Listen to the Interview

Kirpal Singh is an internationally recognized writer, the author of 15 books, and a Singaporean icon. Among other things, he teaches courses on and directs a program on creativity at the very innovative Singapore Management University.

Kirpal Singh
School of Economics & Social Sciences
Singapore Management University
90 Stamford Road
Singapore 178903
65.68220207
kirpals@smu.edu.sg

Creativity and the Future

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:35:00 -0700

View the Video (slides & audio, 55 minutes)

Creativity and the future are inextricably intertwined. We create the future and creativity is required to perceive the future being created. In today's complex environment, foresight requires the interaction of a number of creative minds with expertise in a variety of fields. Creativity is required to analyze or synthesize data from noise, knowledge from data and wisdom from knowledge. And, that creativity must be tapped and channeled through the use of appropriate futures methodologies. This presentation will cover some concepts of the future and useful ways to utilize the creativity of people to develop foresight. It will also include a discussion of the limits of our ability to forecast.

Paul Schumann is a practicing futurist with expertise in creativity and innovation. He has lived long enough to see forecasts fail and succeed, including some of his own. He had a thirty year career with IBM in three very different arenas - as a technologist and technology manager in semiconductor technology, as an internal entrepreneur creating the first independent business unit within IBM, and as a cultural change agent developing a more creative and innovative culture. Since retiring from IBM he has been consultant as a business futurist with programs in creativity and innovation. He is the founding president of the Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society (www.CenTexWFS.org ). More information about Paul can be found on his web sites - http://www.theinnovationroadmap.com/ and http://www.glocalvantage.com/.

Creativity in the Cosmos: A Philosophical Appreciation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 06:41:00 -0700

Listen to the Interview (mp3, 11MB)

(1) Appreciate some philosophical ideas that offer an intellectual foundation for many more practical efforts; (2) Relate these, if one chooses--but it's not necessary--to a contemporary view of spirituality; (3) Relate these, also to the processes in one's own mind and personal evolution; (4) Apply the techniques of asides, multiple parts of self, and future projection to enhance effectiveness in communications; (5) Recognize the sources of creativity and cultivate receptivity to these "dramatic muses"; and (6) Appreciate the roots and interconnections of drama, creativity, and the psychologies of play and creativity.

Adam Blatner, M.D., T.E.P., is the only certified trainer of psychodrama in the United States who is also a psychiatrist, and, indeed, a Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Doubly Board Certified in Adult and Child/Adolescent Psychiatry, Dr. Blatner has retired from active clinical practice and instead devotes himself to writing and teaching about "Psychological Literacy," seeking to foster a higher level of social and emotional skills in the population as his contribution to mental hygiene. In the field of psychodrama, Dr. Blatner was the recipient of the field’s highest "J. L. Moreno Award" for lifetime service. He’s the author of three of the most widely used books on the subject, as well as numerous articles and chapters and books.

Adam Blatner
Teacher, Writer
Senior University Georgetown (Texas)
103 Crystal Springs Drive
Georgetown, TX 78628
512 864-0516
adam@blatner.com
www.blatner.com/adam/

ET Light: Enlarging the Circle of Creativity to Include the Doctor Whos

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:03:00 -0700

Listen to the Interview (mp3, 12M)

A courageous outrageous storytelling musical presenting encounters with extraterrestrial beings--intuitions, events, dreams, psychic messages and memories--with interpretations of what they may be telling us. It will move past the edge of what "authorities" tell us is our universe. Come prepared to laugh about, question, awaken or renew your relationship with extraterrestrial collaborators.

Carol McCormick studied over a period of three years at the Anna Wise Center in California. She has been a teacher and trainer at schools, colleges, universities, and corporations for thirty years. Her teacher Anna Wise wrote Awakening the Mind: A Guide to Mastering the Power of Your Brainwaves and The High Performance Mind - Mastering Brainwaves for Insight, Healing, and Creativity. Anna has taught biofeedback meditation and brainwave training for the past three decades and has led workshops and seminars throughout the United States, as well as in Europe, South America, and Asia. She is a leading authority on EEG and Higher States of Consciousness.

Carol McCormick
Storyteller, Trainer, and Public Speaker
SpiritMind Institute
625 Windemere Drive
Plymouth, MN 55441
763-546-4133
mccobuch@comcast.net

Community Weaving: A New Solution for a New Century

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:57:00 -0700

Listen to the Interview (mp3, 5 MB)

Community Weaving is a grassroots community mobilization strategy that weaves the social fabric of community. This social change methodology incorporates the use of web-based technology to weave the human and tangible resources of the grassroots with the knowledge and skills of formal systems to create new ways of being in community. The approach raises social consciousness and awakens the human spirit to its purpose by engaging people to take responsibility for what they care about to create a more caring, just and civil society. In this networking session, Cheryl will reveal the techniques she used to grow a Family Support Network across the U.S. This transformative community building approach weaves a multi-cultural community tapestry of connections within communities, across organizations and around the world. Community Weaving is a cutting-edge methodology featured in the new Change Handbook, 2nd Edition. You don't want to miss this incredible opportunity to learn simple tips on how to grow your networking potential exponentially.

Cheryl Honey, C.P.P., of Bothell, WA, is president of Excel Strategies, Inc. and pioneer of Community Weaving, a social change methodology. She founded Family Support Network, Int'l and developed web-based technology to weave fabric of community within community systems around the world. Cheryl spearheaded a national movement by engaging citizens to take responsibility to creating a more caring, just and civil society. She is an advisor to the Alliance for Human Empowerment and member of the American Creativity Association. She received a B.A. in Liberal Arts & Transformative Community Building from Antioch University, Seattle. She authored Community Weaving in The Change Handbook 2nd Edition, and published numerous articles on community organizing and volunteerism. Communities tap her expertise to develop innovative approaches to build and bridge social capital. She's an Ambassador for Peace, and recipient of the Excellence in Leadership Award and the Giraffe Award, for sticking her neck out.

Cheryl Honey, C.P.P.
Master WeaverFamily Support Network, Int'l
14316 75th Ave. NE
Bothell, WA 98011
206.240.2241
www.familynetwork.org