Innovation Crafting

Creating the Next Revolution in Military Affairs - The Advent of Genius Systems

2012-03-29T17:17:00.000+05:30

Purple Beret publishes my article on The Next Revolution in Military Affairs

The Un-edited draft posted below

CAN INDIA CREATE THE NEXT REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS?

Given our past history – hold on, not our glorious ancient history – just a small period to last 60 years or so, the above question at best can be dumped as an internet joke or shall I say a Facebook status update or maybe a non-trending passive Tweet. Many will be justified by pointing to the futility of even asking this question – India has much more pressing needs – and all these talks of revolution we have seen enough – whether it is our vocal show or support to Jan lokpal bill or our candle lighting remembrances of Mumbai attacks.

Yet, it is imperative that India should ask this question? In 1911, had someone told my grandfather that India in 2012 will actually be divided into three countries – he might have said let my grandchildren take care of that – I am facing a bloody world war now. If I tell you today that Pakistan – that used to be India – oh really – will be Chinese territory in 2025, you may have this very strong urge to book my ticket for Agra – besides Taj Mahal it also has a mental asylum.

What is an RMA?

If you have read till now, may be you are one of those who still read articles which are longer than Facebook status updates. According to many established experts a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) creates a paradigm shift in the nature of military operations by either making the core capability of a dominant player irrelevant or creating new capability in some new dimension of warfare or both. The RMA combines new technology, organization and doctrine to employ new operational concepts to achieve the above. The Military history students may recall how a device called Machine Gun created a new model for land warfare and destroyed the massed infantry forces in the open – the way wars were won before. The German Blitzkrieg rendered obsolete the static defense of prepared positions by infantry and artillery and the Carrier Battle Group by USA and British created a new model for naval warfare. The current RMA being perfected and propagated by USA combines advances in C4ISR systems and long range precision munitions with new operational concepts of network centricity, information warfare and continuous, rapid, joint and whole-theatre operations is reflected in the new devices showcased as, for example, Military Drones. It has been proposed that the actual firing and engaging with the enemy systems - will be completely overtaken by automated systems. Humans will retain (remote) control through strategic decisions about where and when to strike for achieving war objectives.

Long-range precision fires, information warfare, system of systems, network centric warfare and cooperative engagement capability are key potential manifestations of the new RMA. When one looks at the model of a new RMA, one sees a culmination of synergy between new technologies, new devices and systems, new operational concepts and new doctrine and force structure. For example the ICBMs in decades after WWII combined advances in fusion weapons, multi-stage rockets and inertial guidance to provide hitherto unknown dimension of inter-continent strategic warfare by developing the capability of accurate delivery of high-yield nuclear weapons across continents.

One good news for countries who may be interested in creating the next RMA – hope our Chinese friends are not listening – the RMA’s have mostly been created by non-dominant player in any conflict- except may be the current Information and networking based RMA created by the sole super power.

How to create the Next RMA?

If one looks at deeply and may be broadly – one can see that current RMA has been designed not by military hardware – in the traditional sense of the term - but really by software. The ability to enable functioning of various hardware elements of a military system (or system of systems or ultra large scale systems) to respond and actuate destructive - reactive as well as proactive - actions against specific changes in and around the immediate environment in time and space – just by pre-coding a mesh of carefully written set of instructions stored on various forms of electronic organization called “media” or “memory” – has given the military and to the world at large unprecedented capabilities. The act of “programming” the machines through a set of rules – called protocols to talk to each other and also “process” inputs in the form of data and facts and represent by symbols – has come about not by manufacturing the “steel” bullets but by writing software into machines that talk to each other in a deterministic (more or less) manner to act against potential threats.

Yet, software is the Achilles heel of the current RMA. For starters, the reliability of software is a perennial problem – unsolved so far. Software has this amazing ability to remain “buggy” despite been checked by multiple human eyes and brains of species called programmers, testers and also their automated code checking tools. Further, to the great horror of any military commander, a perfectly normal and working software system – which was working absolutely without any trouble for many years – can fail and lead to a catastrophe just because a particular path/condition that the environment never gave trouble to the system suddenly gets activated in the light of a unique input – which most crisis situations will create. These “black swans” that software based systems are much more prone are the “soft belly” (pun not intended) of the new RMA.

Further, since the software based systems use open source, openly available, commercially available underlying software components – operating systems, communication protocol stacks, network routers, applications, GUIs, compression algorithms, security protocols, database management systems, etc, the field of cyber weapons – which exploit the inherent weaknesses of these known software systems – is the potential course of the underdog in the fight against New RMA forces.

To counter the software based RMA being perfected by USA and reflected in the Drones and C4ISR systems one need to think how to maximize the “black swans” in a real world conflict with the new RMA forces.

Candidate Ideas for Next RMA

One thought is to create the systems that use the proprietary software components instead of openly available or commercial software systems end-to-end. Avoiding the known software based components is a prudent strategy; however, it has a huge challenge of re-inventing the wheel (or wheels) at a massive scale. Given the task involved and resources needed – this initiative of for example developing your own operating system, own C++ compiler, own router, own compression algorithms, can only extract suppressed laughter from the software development experts, that is if they are restrained somehow in cracking completely by holding their stomachs by both hands.

Another thought and may be this can lead to something in future that may have some possibility - is to think of Counter Software Systems – these are specifically designed capabilities to maximize the possibility of failure of software based systems. The cyber warfare capabilities being developed and discussed in many reports online are testimony to potential of counter software system as a potential RMA. Imagine a much more precise and capable “Stuxnet” computer virus, than the one that reportedly disabled centrifuges in an Iranian uranium-enrichment plant couple of years back, being used to wreak havoc in the RMA force. A set of micro devices (electronic spiders) that roam the battlefield – air, sea and land – and just impregnate the C4ISR systems, drones and precision munitions – so that either the bits that make the “instructions” and the bits that make the memory are not erased, corrupted or destroyed but “re-programmed” in a manner that commands that drone handlers are giving the drones just turn against the RMA force. Looks like science fiction – may be!

However, the greatest possibility is the creation of new class of systems called Genius systems. If one studies the evolution of technical systems one very interesting trend is visible – our technical systems are becoming more and more intelligent. For example, the dumb bombs also called a gravity bomb, free-fall bomb, dumb bomb, iron bomb, or unguided bomb, is a conventional aircraft-delivered bomb that does not contain a guidance system and hence, simply follows a ballistic trajectory. The dumb system evolves into a guided system. For example, the dumb bomb evolved into a guided munition using homing guidance or command-to-line-of-sight (CLOS). Next stage of evolution was the smart munition with a limited target selection capability that does not require an operator in the loop- may be terminally guided ("hit-to-kill") or sensor fuzed ("shoot-to-kill"). The smart munitions became brilliant munitions - a many-on-many munition that operates autonomously to search for, detect, identify, acquire, and attack specific classes of targets. What are the next stages in this evolution? I call them the Genius Systems. For example a genius munition will be a brilliant munition that combines the elements available in run-time to build a specific munition to destroy/neutralize specific targets that are available, predicts targets that will be available in near future and get ready with the specific munition that will be needed to neutralize the futuristic targets. It may be a form of an autonomous UCAV – autonomous drones.

India needs to invest in development of Genius Systems

We have a window of opportunity for next 25 years when the young population percentage world over will be maximum in India. Further, our ability to understand the language of software – its basis in abstract thinking and logic of constructing – is traditionally strong and scalable. This is the time when India should invest in three pronged strategy of creating the RMA based on Genius systems – a set of highly evolved intelligent technical systems that work on principles of Next generation intelligence – a move from brilliance to genius system of on-line learning and innovating systems. The three pronged strategic dimensions are (a) Avoid as far as possible known, standard software components developed outside India and available as embedded in weapons systems being procured (b) Create a framework for counter software systems with all sort of cyber weapons being experimented within the framework and finally (c) leapfrog the “evolution of intelligent systems” by creating the doctrine, technology, force structure and operational employment of Genius systems.

If India combine the capabilities distributed across the country into a major mission mode initiative – we can do it, otherwise, we already have become the largest importers of the defence equipment as our doctrine is still based on dumb weapons/guided weapons whereas the world has already moved to brilliant systems.

Strategic Decision Making - Applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process - My Book

2012-03-29T17:12:00.000+05:30

Kathmandu University - School of Management (KUSOM) is conducting a course on decision making and using my book on Strategic Decision Making - Applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process as part of the course taught by Mr. Shashi Bhattarai. The book was published in January 2004 and now has been referred to by many research papers and journals!!

Education and Imagination

2012-03-09T10:41:00.000+05:30

You can teach me conformance, discipline, practice, load my head with facts, figures and what not - But please don't take away my imagination - because after you all are finished schooling me - that's the most precious thing I have to come back from the layers and layers of education that you encased my heart in!

Conducting One day workshop for Madras Management Association on A Framework for Innovation

2012-03-07T12:22:00.000+05:30

Dear Members,

Greetings!!

MMA conducts one day workshop on

A Framework for Innovation

Facilitator
Mr Navneet Bhushan
Founder Director of CRAFITTI CONSULTING

Date
Friday 23 March 2012
(09.30 am - 5.30 pm)

Venue
Hotel Deccan Plaza
36, Royapettah High Road, Chennai - 14

Overview:

The globe is being re-engineered rapidly. Our businesses of today are not what they used to be even a decade back. Our existing methods of thinking – based on analytic and logical methods developed over last couple of centuries are suddenly looking in-effective in the new world of increasing globalization, increasing complexity and unprecedented pace.

The problem solver is in a complex web of decision dependencies and fuzzy end of decision complexity. This workshop gives a comprehensive exposition to Lean Inventive Systems Thinking (LIST) framework developed after successful experimentation in multiple domains. This is a potent framework for collective problem solving using five key thinking dimensions – these are Lean Thinking, Inventive or Design thinking and Systems Thinking besides the traditional Logical and Analytical thinking. It has already proved its worth in designing new products and services, improving overall productivity, reducing cycle time, designing relevant solutions needed by customers, generating Patentable Inventions and minimizing stress on the employees. Some of these cases will be shared in the workshop.

If you, your team, your organization or your business is

· Impacted by rapid increase in Globalization?

· Impacted by explosive increase in complexity?

· Overwhelmed by continuous pressure to think “out of box”?

· Faced with decision paralysis due to information de-coherence?

· Feeling the heat of unknown competitors doing unprecedented things to eat away your business?

If most of your answers are YES, this workshop will help you find answers.

Do you think that

· “Decision Making” is your one of your teams’ core strength?

· “Problem Solving” and “Innovation” are embedded in your teams’ attitude?

· Your team manages to avoid getting into crisis most of the time?

· You know the value that you are creating or delivering to your customer?

If most of your answers are NO, this workshop will help you find answers.

Methodology

The sessions will be interactive. There will be sharing of knowledge by the facilitator. The participants will be engaged in discussions and hands on exercise. The sessions will be aided with ppt for better understanding of concepts and a workbook will be distributed to the participants.

About Facilitator

Mr Navneet Bhushan is a Post Graduate Diploma in IPR (NLSIU, Bangalore), Diploma Patent Information (The Netherlands), M.Tech (Computer Science &Engg) IIT Madras, M.Sc (Software Science) Allahabad University, B.Sc (Hons.) Physics (Delhi University).

Mr NavneetBhushan (Navneet) is a founder director of CRAFITTI CONSULTING, an Innovation and Intellectual Property Research, Consulting and Training firm head-quartered at Bangalore, India.

Over a career spanning more than two decades, Navneet held positions such as Vice-President and Head (Innovation) with Hexaware Technologies, Principal Consultant with Wipro Technologies, CEO of CREAX Information Technologies Pvt Ltd., Technology Specialist at Philips Global Intellectual Property & Standards (IP&S) division, and Senior Research Associate with Infosys Technologies. Before joining the corporate world Navneet worked for more than a decade as a Scientist at Defence Research &Development Organization (DRDO). Navneet has extensive experience in the fields of Innovation, Patent Portfolio Management, Software Development, Management, Research, IP Analysis. He has been providing advisory and problem solving consultancy to variety of Industries in the decision engineering, Innovation, Intellectual Property and Information Technology landscape.

Mr Navneet has authored more than 65 technical research papers and articles in various International and National Journals, Trade Magazines and Conferences. He has spoken on innovation, patents, Intellectual Property, TRIZ and Strategic Decision Making in various organizations & forums. Mr Navneet has conducted TRIZ, Lean and Patent based workshops for more than 2000 senior and middle level executives of companies such as, HAL, LG, IOCL, Wipro, Honeywell, Infosys, Aditya Birla Group, ABB, GE, Hughes, Sharp, Philips, Thomson-Reuters, CavinKare, TVS Motors, Weir Minerals, DRDO, etc.

He is the principal author of Strategic Decision Making- Applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process published by Springer-Verlag, UK, as part of the Decision Engineering Series. The book has been featured at Harvard Business School working knowledge for business leaders. He is an associate editor of the International Journal of Analytic Hierarchy Process and reviews research papers for defence science journal. Navneet has been invited as an external expert for assessment board of DRDO Scientists and has participated as a facilitator for evolving citizen centric rural e-governance workshop conducted by IIPA, Delhi. Mr Navneet has been conferred Entrepreneurial Innovation and Leadership Award for 2012 .

Fee Details
Participation fee – Rs 2500/- plus 10.3% service tax per participant

Special discounted fee for MMA members Rs 2000/- per participant

The cheque/DD to be drawn in favour of ”Madras Management Association”.

Prior registration is necessary. The fee once paid will not be refunded; change in nomination from same organisation will be permitted.

The registration is through email and the following details is to be given for registration Name of the Participant, Designation, Contact No and Email id.

Look forward to the pleasure of receiving your nominations at the earliest.

Thanks for your continued support to MMA and its activities.

Kindly send your nomination to:

Madras Management Association
“MMA House” | 148-K Old Mahabalipuram Road
Thoraipakkam, Chennai – 600 097
P 2496 2766 | F 2496 2777 |M 9176665229
mma@vsnl.com | www.mmachennai.org

With warm regards,

Gp Capt R Vijayakumar, VSM
Executive Director
Madras Management Association

One day National Level Seminar on Intellectual Property Rights Awareness in E & IT sector

2012-03-07T12:04:00.000+05:30

LIST Techniques for Thinking Out of BOX

2012-02-14T22:56:00.000+05:30

Learning from across the world

2012-01-17T13:46:00.002+05:30

Cody Brooks who Blogs at http://tehbrookzorz.blogspot.com/ sells I sell car repair services and preventative maintenance in Canada.
A small chat encounter with him resulted in the following insight for me. I thought I am also selling the same services except I sell the innovation consulting services.
Reproducing below our conversation

Cody Brooks I sell car repair services and preventative maintenanceat least as my job, if that's what you mean
Navneet Bhushan if I may ask - how do you sell these - I am also in the similar job - I sell Preventive maintenance of future crisis for businesses
Cody Brooks that is interesting, I hadn't realized that was a field one could work in
Navneet Bhushan I sell by telling them how to adapt to change that the world is seeing
Cody Brooks generally, i'm at a counter at the garage. customers are either aware that they have a problem and want us to find the source, or come in for routine maintenance and are advised of manufacturer's recommendations or obvious faults. which is a contrast, i don't know that business come with owner's manuals..
Navneet Bhushan one way to adapt is to try figure out what is changing and then adapt - but more potent is to create the change that you want to see. I call this innovation consultancy but I think I can learn a lot from what you do. I love preventive maintenance of car services at least the way we both sell these services may have great similarities
Cody Brooks i suppose the root of it is identifying what will wear out over what use/time, and dealing with it before it becomes a problem. if you know that coolant is good for so many heat cycles in a known environment, you have a good idea of when to change it. advising the customer to change it before it becomes corrosive and potentially causes damage to other parts of the system is seen as good value because it prevents them from having to pay to change expensive components at a high labor cost Now I don't know what coolant lasts for, the manufacturer determines that. Generally we use tools to see the condition in the here and now.
Navneet Bhushan amazing - what will be impacted by what change when is very similar to create the preventive maintenance of business
Cody Brooks This all sounds much fancier than it feels in application. I imagine that the two fields could be superimposed in theories. Perhaps in a lesson you could compare the ideas

This exchange resulted in a BlogPost by Cody - which reads nicely at Business Parallels

7P6D Model of starting the NEW - What and How

2012-01-17T12:17:00.000+05:30

WHAT AND HOW OF STARTING THE NEW (7P6D MODEL)

7Ps of starting something new

If you want to start something new - what you should have

1. Passion Long term sustainability will require passion - Passion creates a momentum in you that overcomes all possible naysayers and inertias of why something will not work

2. Patience Take it that there will be delays, difficulties and outright demeaning people - with smiles that means mockery - however please also remember - each such smile - also hides a fear - fear of "if you succeed..." then those smiles have to become awe ... To override all these smiles - build patience in your system

3. Perseverance King Bruce and the spider - will start making complete sense to you - there is no other method than learning from spider - on rebuilding your net - again and again even if you keep on failing.

4. Planning is actually an essential activity. Even if innovators may not understand it. I suggest a minimum level of planning is essential - key list of activities and follow up on them over a period of time - makes sense

5. Pride is something that I learnt recently. I somehow never thought about pride in doing what you are starting - actually Pride in doing the change is so important that it can actually lead you to build on other Ps.

Originally I had 5Ps now I am adding two more Ps - Purpose and Planet

6. Purpose is the main starting point. It has to come from within, the purpose of what you want to create.

7. Planet is the key to defining your purpose. If the purpose is not aligned with the Planet earth - the nature - it will not lead to a sustainable venture.

So if you want to create change in the world that you want to see - build on 7Ps!

6Ds of how to do something new

1. DISCOVER - Your business, your market, your social network, your customers or even yourself. This springs from your purpose within the constraints

2. DEFINE - What is your business and what is the key message of your business

3. DESCRIBE - Elaborate what you defined by describing in detail the customer value that your business is creating or will be creating

4. DEVELOP - Develop the messages/communications for all possible channels - print, TV, online, Email, social networks, micro blog, blog of your company, SMS, and online videos and all possible channels. Also the business model, the model of the idea, a prototype of the product.

5. DEPLOY - Start deploying with an initial design in mind for creating Tipping Point by finding Mavens/salesmen/connectors in the networks of your choice, but before that make your product/service sticky. If you follow Duncan Watts of Small world fame, may be just start telling the crowd.

6. DEDUCE - whatever is happening you need to find out how its happening. Carry out what I call Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) Promoter Score - a combo of Net Promoter Score and Tipping Point framework.

Use 7P6D Model of starting on your idea! ~ Believe me it is doable!

Peeling the Innovation Onion - Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-16T08:44:00.002+05:30

2012 started with a very hectic schedule for me personally as well as for my company CRAFITTI

From 6-8 January I was invited to attend and speak at the Global IP Convention 2012 at New Delhi. I spoke on "Innovation Mysteries - Opening the Pandora's Box" -

Innovation indeed is a Pandora's Box. The mythical character in Greek Mythology - Pandora was first woman on earth who was given a Box - and it was instructed that she should not open it. When she opened it, due to curiosity, as the myth goes, all the problems of the earth escaped the box - teasing Pandora's on their way out. She tried to close the box, but in vain, except that she was able to close - when only Hope was still in the box.

Innovation today is a Pandora's box - and surprisingly everyone wants to keep it closed - lest it opens up the Innovation problems. Speaker after speaker talk about Innovation - no one actually wants to do it. Innovation is excruciatingly hard. It indeed is very difficult. For the talk I listed down following 9 Innovation Mysteries - but there are more

INNOVATION MYSTERY #1: Higher the position in a company, more the person talks about Innovation and less he actually do it. Why?

INNOVATION MYSTERY #2: Everyone is interested in produce of innovation but rarely people are interested in knowing how to innovate

INNOVATION MYSTERY #3: Most of us like to advise others on innovation - rarely applying those advisory principles on our own self

INNOVATION MYSTERY #4: Post Facto - every innovation is obvious but when we were at the change point rarely we will choose the change path

INNOVATION MYSTERY #5: Ideas are available - cheaply!

INNOVATION MYSTERY #6: It is all about Execution!

INNOVATION MYSTERY #7: Patents can not be used for inventing the future!

INNOVATION MYSTERY #8: Patents are what lawyers do!

INNOVATION MYSTERY #9: Lawyers know about patent law means they know about innovation!!

One can ask - OK - what are YOU saying?
What am I saying

Innovation is about CHANGE - and in my opinion the greatest definition of Innovation has come not from Steve Jobs (The current Fashioned heartthrob of various Innovation Speakers - Please read Mystery #1 above) But - Surprise Surprise ---- ( from the old boring almost too much preaching - oh no - not again!) ... Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (M.K. Gandhi) - In a remarkable quote - which in my opinion is really the key to Innovation he said

M.K. Gandhi – “You be the CHANGE that you want to see in the world”

I have paraphrased it further little bit - more explicit -- Successful creation of change by (new) ideas.

Drosophila Studies and Systems Biology

2011-12-13T18:56:00.000+05:30

Communicated a paper to 49th Pedicon to be held at Gurgaon

Drosophila: gateway to new possibilities in pediatric research

Venkatesh Krishnamurthy^1#, Navneet Bhushan² and Vinit.N.Kaushik¹

1. (www.modelbiosystems.com)

2. (www.crafitti.com)

# corresponding author: venkat@modelbiosystems.com

Abstract:

The Fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is a powerful model genetic organism that has been used since the turn of previous century to study complex biological problems. Several genes and underlying molecular pathways involved in development and diseases are highly conserved between humans and Drosophila. This has led to the development of human disease models in fly. This power of Drosophila genetics can be exploited by medical fraternity including PEDIATRICIANS to uncover genes to dissect pathways involved in disease pathogenesis and to identify targets for therapeutic intervention.

2011-11-05T08:19:00.000+05:30

The GIX Bang World

We have seen unprecedented increase in Globalization, Innovation and Complexity - in last two decades. I call it the GIX Bang world - almost like the birth of a new world - similar to the Big Bang that resulted in the birth of the Universe.

Have a look at the GIX Bang world at my column at Frontier India - THE GIX BANG WORLD

India Innovates in Abstract like no one else - My Interview

2011-10-05T11:38:00.000+05:30

Frontier India carried my interview on Innovation and role of Crafitti

Some Excerpts

" India as a country is amazing in its complexity and ability to absorb change – India has absorbed vast amount of changes and adapted to the changing world through inherent strengths. Ability to adapt to the world and adopt the globe as one is summed up in our philosophy of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” – the whole world is one single family. However, time has come to advance this philosophy to creating change along with the global village. This is what is summed in our company’s philosophy as “Crafting Innovation Together”.

Finally India innovates in abstract in a way no one else can. The number of icons, the frameworks, the swami’s, the cults, the “way of life” methodologies, the “road to nirvana” mechanisms that India has created over many centuries, I do not think any other civilization has created. We are greatest exporters of “the abstract”. The strength of abstract actually becomes a weakness in a world that is about machines, the automatons, the robots and mass-scale production.

"However, the new world that we are seeing now needs new ways to solve problems. The new age of innovation requires new methods to deal with complexity. They are likely to be based on a deeper understanding of indeterminacy, non-linearity, chaos, adaptation, self-organization and distributed intelligence. India scores naturally on all these – much better than any other country. However, we need to inculcate the new methods for a systemic change. We need to make India Innovative. In fact, that’s the only course left for the whole world as the largest population of youngest minds in the next 25 years will be based in India."

The complete Interview can be read HERE

Creating Innovation Professionals - A 9 Month course

2011-10-04T22:48:00.000+05:30

Creating innovation professionals

View more presentations from Navneet Bhushan.

How to be an Innovation Co-Crafter?

2011-10-02T18:02:00.001+05:30

"I am seeing this first time - your designation is co-crafter" - He looked at my visiting card and remarked! I was about to start a presentation on how to create Innovation Professionals to a set of senior executives from a group of companies. ~ After I explained what is a co-crafter - the COO said - I want to create 100 co-crafters in next 2 years!

I thought it make sense to capture what I explained as a co-crafter - all of us at my company Crafitti Consulting http://www.crafitti.com/ are co-crafters. We co-craft innovation together with all the minds working for and with our clients.

A Co-Crafter is a Simpleton, Scientist and Saint - who starts along with people in a system (experienced domain experts) to reach to the SOUL of the system. He starts every time as a simpleton (IDIOT if you may - in Chetan Bhagat's articulation in his book 3 Idiots) - then he becomes a scientist and finally achieves sainthood - reaching and delivering a wisdom of the system to effect change that is needed - making the system as close to Ideal as is possible. In this journey - he creates systemic change along with people in the system.

Everytime co-crafter starts as a simpleton who has multiple lenses to view reality and many times creates new lenses to look at reality - during this adventures in wonderland he behaves like a scientist - experimenting exploring understanding through the steps of SOUL - See, Observe, Understand and Live - after the simpleton has reached to the SOUL of the system, he starts the change process needed - a change that impacts all around him. Slowly the wisdom gleaned from this becomes the new change that the system needed and experts start developing their expertise in the new change!

A co-crafter is a simpleton who becomes a scientist and then achieves sainthood by working with a system and the people in the system to make the system as close to an ideal system as is possible - He has to be humble, has to accept that he doesnt know and actually need to reach the SOUL of the system by learning to See, Observe, Understand and Live (SOUL) the system. Achieving Sainthood from being a simpleton everytime is a learning process!

A co-crafter takes the organization that he works with to the Simplicity on the other side of complexity - one has to go through complexity. This side of simplicity will keep us simpletons - I hope you can connect with being Simpleton as this side of complexity - being a Saint is on other side of complexity and exploring complexity is being a scientist! - The co-crafter takes the system through a journey of simplicity from this side of complexity to the other side of complexity, breaking and many times shattering the mountains of complexity!

4 Fundamentals of STEMIC TCP MODEL

2011-09-26T12:05:00.002+05:30

6 Ds of Digital Marketing

2011-09-21T22:49:00.001+05:30

After Teaching three different MBA courses in different schools in last two years - I have now the model for Digital Marketing that I call 6D model

The 6 Ds are

1. DISCOVER - Your business, your market, your social network, your customers or even yourself

2. DEFINE - What is your business and what is the key message of your business

3. DESCRIBE - Elaborate what you defined by describing in detail the customer value that your business is creating or will be creating

4. DEVELOP - Develop the messages/communications for all possible channels - print, TV, online, Email, social networks, micro blog, blog of your company, SMS, and online videos and all possible channels.

5. DEPLOY - Start deploying with an initial design in mind for creating Tipping Point by finding Mavens/salesmen/connectors in the networks of your choice, but before that make your product/service sticky. If you follow Duncan Watts of Small world fame, may be just start telling the crowd.

6. DEDUCE - whatever is happening you need to find out how its happening. Carry out what I call Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) Promoter Score - a combo of Net Promoter Score and Tipping Point framework.

THE GLOBALIZING INNOVATION COMPLEXITY - THE GIX BANG WORLD from Google trends

2011-08-11T11:24:00.000+05:30

my Linkedin Network Visualized

2011-07-18T18:45:00.002+05:30

About Information - What is Information - From my upcoming book - Crafting New Choices

2011-07-16T08:21:00.002+05:30

About Information!

I suggest a reading of James Gleick's book http://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/0375423729/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310783539&sr=1-1

Also to understand the structural view of information in contrast to prevalent processing view of information - I suggest a reading of http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR880.html specifically Chapter 19

From the first chapter of my new book that I am writing on Crafting New Choices

What is Information: Information is becoming an elusive overused word. As the chapters from the book of information revolution are unfolding, definition of information needs regular reviews. These reviews are becoming more important as the information revolution is becoming more wide spread. The impact of Information is not only increasing in the existing dimensions of human endeavor, it is creating altogether new dimensions of human existence.

Information was initially viewed as being about a message and/or a medium. A new idea emerged where some information is being regarded as material – as lying at the core of all existence, where it may be as fundamental as matter and energy. These concepts are under a slightly clichéd title of Information Physics. However, they are powerful concepts. If matter and energy are convertible physical entities, Information can create both matter and energy in a broader sense of the words. Thus an Informed actor is likely to create something tangible (matter or energy). [In Athena’s Camp] describes two views of Information - Processing View and Structural View. These two views must energize each other for the organizations to evolve into better forms for the future.

The processing view developed in 1940’s through the works of Shannon, Weaver and Wiener – which defines Information as mostly about signals being transmitted between senders and receivers. The universal tendency of organizations is towards breakdown and randomization, i.e., Entropy. All living systems must counter this Entropy, through matter and energy processing. These processes require information. The view has developed that everything is information.

The Structural view of information is about the information that is not doing any processing, it exists embedded in a structure giving it a form and defining its character. Such information is less involved in processing than in structuring.

The fundamental point here is that Information Revolution should be considered from two perspectives – one is the processing viewpoint which is already the dominant one. The second - the structuring viewpoint assumes more importance as the Information Revolution becomes more evolved. Structure and Process are different. However, both are extremely important for the understanding of a system.

The Structural View

All structures contain embedded information. Where there is structure – or pattern or organization - there is information. Embedded information is what enables a structure to hold its form, to remain coherent, even to evolve and adapt. This view says that everything may not be information, but everything has information embedded in it if it has structure. The main point here is that the processing view is not wrong, but in one context after another, it is insufficient if it is made the sole lens for looking at the role of information in organizations. A framework that includes a structural view as well should be stronger analytically and should reveal information to be a deeper and broader concept.

The processing view creates an impression that the organizations can be enhanced by adding new information and communication technologies, without necessarily having to change the organization’s structure in order to adapt advantageously to a technology. However, in organizations where the inertia to change is greater, an emphasis on processing view may make it more likely that structural questions about the nature of the organization are left inadequately addressed.

In contrast a Structural view brings to forefront the values, goals and principles that an organization embodies – on what matters to it and its constituents, from the standpoint of its identity, meaning and purpose as an identity, apart from whether it is doing information processing. A structural view relates to that part of the information revolution that is said to be about Knowledge. Data do not determine the nature of the structure. A structural view underscores how much a vibrant organization depends on the deeply embedded information and how difficult and complex it may be to change an organization. The processing view tends to be more about efficiency and performance than about meaning and purpose. A structural view assumes at the start that an organization’s information infrastructure is only part of the picture; more important is its ideational superstructure. While the processing view tends to illuminate technology as a critical factor, a structural view is more likely to uphold the human capital. While the processing view seems to appreciate quantitative approaches to information, a structural view is more likely to be qualitative.

First major paradigm shift with the structural lens is that it elevates the organization to almost a living organism compared to the other view of organization as a machine processing information. Highly subjective insights, intuitions, and hunches are integral part of knowledge. Knowledge also embraces ideals, values and emotions as well as images and symbols. These soft and qualitative elements are crucial to an understanding of the eastern view of knowledge (Chinese, Indian and Japanese).

Re-look at the Information Pyramid
Although the pyramid seems to imply that higher layers depend upon lower layers that is true only to certain degree. Each layer has some independence. The processing view relates to the lower two layers of the pyramid while upper two layers comes in the realm of structural viewpoint.

DATA -> INFORMATION -> KNOWLEDGE -> WISDOM

The structural view may include – ideational superstructure, organizational structure, technological infrastructure and a linguistic substructure. The Ideational Superstructure is the level of ideas and ideologies, myths and maxims, values and norms, etc. that define the nature of a culture and the structure within it.
The organization structure is the level of particular organization in the company. Broadly the structural view holds that all organizations depend on information and may be analyzed as information structures. This is the level for identifying which entities and areas are concerned with information and communication in the organization.
The level of Technology Infrastructure refers to all the hardware and software systems and all the connectivity that support communications and information flow. The information processing view tends to focus at this level.

The linguistic substructure
Ideally there should be coherence amongst all levels. Information decoherence may bring on structural instability, leading possibly to breakdown or radical reforms.

IT Services Bid Management Enabling Framework

2011-07-14T11:58:00.003+05:30

IT Services Big Management Enabling Framework

Bidding for Information Technology Services or Information Technology enabled Services (The IT/ITeS) is a highly context sensitive activity fraught with many uncertainties and impacted by multiple imponderables. Managing an IT/ITeS bid involves multiple stakeholders and skills. The aim of dedicated bid managers is typically to carry out high number of bids in a specific time period and increase the win/bid ratio. However, due to increasing number of bids and the amount of information needed from multiple experts or stakeholders to organize a response for a bid, it is a challenge for the bid manager to organize high quality response to the customer needs in the compressed time lines that invariably creeps in despite the best intentions. This impacts the overall quality of the bid response and in fact impacts the win-bid ratio to a considerable extent. There is a need to ease the task of bid managers to generate responses to a large number of bids where each bid has its specific peculiarities and each bid may require multiple mix and match of existing services that the IT services company provides.

Crafitti was involved in working with a large Indian IT/ITeS Company to improve the effectiveness of the Bid Management system. During the initial interactions with the Bid management team in the Telecom Services Provider (TSP) vertical specific pain areas were articulated by the team. It was decided to use the Innovation Crafting Framework for solving the pain areas. This framework propels the team to take a holistic approach by taking the problem through clearly distinct phases of –

(I) Problem Formulation/Exploration/Definition

(II) Ideation/Solution Generation/Brainstorming

(III) Solution Development

(IV) Solution Evaluation

(V) Solution Implementation

(VI) Monitoring of Benefits.

Each of these phases require half-day workshop with almost half day of offline work by the teams per week for over 5-6 weeks as the case may be. This report describes the complete process and also documents the key solutions and improvements created using the Innovation Crafting by designing a new Bid Management Enabling Framework.

View more documents from Navneet Bhushan

Mumbai Blasts

2011-07-13T22:26:00.002+05:30

Chronology of Blasts since Oct 2005 in India

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2224460.ece

HOW TO INVENT - A UNIQUE WORKSHOP AT CHANDIGARH 4th JULY 2011

2011-06-29T08:51:00.002+05:30

First things first

1. EVERY ONE CAN BE AN INVENTOR!!
2. THERE ARE STRUCTURED METHODS TO INVENT
3. EVEN IF YOU ARE ALREADY AN INVENTOR - THESE METHODS CAN HELP YOU MAKE STRONG INVENTIONS

CRAFITTI CONSULTING along with Talwar and Talwar Consultants offer a unique Workshop on 4th of July 2011 at Chandigarh, India.

HOW TO BUILD STRONG INVENTIONS instead of just hoping for serendipitous random ideas to fructify requires a fundamental shift in thinking. This needs aids, techniques and methodologies that are helping many to Invent.

We offer these methods as a strong How to Invent workshop in India.

To Register, please send an email to info@crafitti.com

Please look at more details at HOW TO INVENT WORKSHOP!!

Idea Evaluation

2011-06-26T16:05:00.002+05:30

Three high level parameters help if one has to evaluate ideas.

The method that I have been following has the following three key parameters

1. Customer Value - To know more one can read HERE

2. Business Potential

3. Readiness and Feasibility

Now the trick is to carry out a pairwise comparison using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

The Output given below - gives on the x-axis - relative score for Enterprise Readiness and Feasibility of the idea and y-axis gives a relative score of Customer Value. The size of the bubble gives the relative score for Business Potential.

Meaning - The Next Killer App

2011-06-25T21:35:00.002+05:30

The Rand Corporation described a new methodology called Expert Lens

that analyzes expert opinion - combining delphi method and crowdsourcing.

Have a look HERE.

I think this is the search for a killer app in "Meaning" - after email, after social networking - what next!

Meaning will see more and more apps!

What is your vertical? Crafitti's Vertical

2011-06-23T17:57:00.002+05:30

I was asked again.

What is Crafitti's vertical? Please visit http://www.crafitti.com

Well, I am afraid it has to be OTHERS or ALL!

As we are an Innovation Research and Consulting firm - and our existing clients include.

1. A consumer care company (one of the big Indian companies)
2. A Motorbike manufacturer in India ( one of the top 5)
3. A Consumer Electronics Giant ( one of the top 5 in the world)
4. Many Software Services Companies
5. An SME in Engineering products (mining equipment)
6. Intellectual Property firms (patent analytics, patent lawyers)
7. One of the top three Oil (petrol) firms in India
8. Many Start-ups
9. One of the World's top 3 Data/Information companies of the world

and so on ...

We also have the India's first online patent analysis product using our own propriety algorithm called SocialCitnet http://www.socialcitnet.com

Hope it make sense - unfortunately we cant be bucketed in any vertical and may be an horizontal called "Innovation"

Looks like Crafitti's very existence as a Horizontal on Innovation in Business, Science and Technology - is a change that the world has not seen!

Hence very existence of Crafitti is an Innovation!

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I keep on going back to our initial conversation in 2008 with a set of evaluators - when we told them we are an innovation research and consulting firm

They said are you McKinsey of the world, Google of the world or the Infosys of the world. My answer then was - may be we are all of them and none of them at the same time - but definitely we are the "Crafitti" of the world!

the answer STANDS today as well! We empower ideas together!