3 Books Full of Cool Innovation Tools

Rob Berman — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:00:00 GMT

Every organization needs a basket of tools and methods to help find innovative ideas and solutions. Give access to the right tools to the right people based on the nature of their jobs and the types of challenges that needs to be solved. Surround them with proper innovation management processes, and the tools will help generate a culture of innovation and new profits. We are happy to share three of our favorite books on innovation tools.

The Big Book of Creativity Games: Quick, Fun Activities for Jumpstarting Innovation by Robert Epstein

In the modern economy, where most workers are knowledge workers, creativity and innovation are the most easily sustainable competitive advantages. In The Big Book of Creativity Games, Harvard trained psychologist Robert Epstein provides dozens of games and activities designed to stimulate creativity and generate innovation in the workplace.

Dr. Epstein describes the scientific principles of creativity that underlie the games, and how these principles can be applied to tasks like problem solving, new product development, and marketing. Timely and innovative, The Big Book of Creativity Games is the ideal book for managers to turn to whenever they need:

Games that are easy to lead and fun to play
Exercises that go far beyond standard brainstorming techniques
Innovation jump-starters for team meetings and work groups

Fast Creativity & Innovation: Rapidly Improving Processes, Product Development and Solving by Charles W. Bytheway

Function Analysis Systems Technique (FAST) is a powerful mapping technique that can graphically represent goals, objectives, strategies, plans, projects, processes, and procedures in function terms to identify related dependencies by organizing them into a cause-and-effect relationship. It is used as a tool to enhance productive thinking, innovation, creativity, and complex problem-solving by allowing problems to be represented quickly and clearly. "Fast Creativity & Innovation" explores all the original concepts behind the FAST method with examples from all sorts of disciplines and industries, as well as looking at some of the newer derivatives of the method - such as fishbone diagrams and process mapping - and how they can be re-introduced to the original concept to tap into undiscovered opportunities for success.

The Rudolph Factor: Finding the Bright Lights that Drive Innovation in Your Business by Cyndi Laurin & Craig Morningstar

Praise for The Rudolph Factor

"Whether you're just starting a business or are a seasoned veteran, The Rudolph Factor provides the guiding light for continuously stimulating innovation. People are the key, and this is just the recipe for waking up the creative power within!"

The Takeaway

Innovation is an ever-evolving discipline. Many practitioners and academics have invented and popularized many tools to help you accelerate your innovation efforts.

Over to you. Please comment below.

What other books would you add to the recommended reading list?
What is your favorite innovation tool?
In what area of innovation would you like to see new tools created?

6 Creativity and Innovation Books for Your Office

Rob Berman — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 14:00:00 GMT

In my experience, all ideas come from an emotion of creativity. Many ideas are easy to find. However, the breakthrough ideas need staff that is challenged to solve the greatest problems Books in this category will help you identify the problem space as well as solution space by tapping into the hearts and minds of your people.

	Managing Creativity and Innovation (Harvard Business Essentials) Packed with practical information designed for business readers and managers at all levels, this essential volume offers insights on managing creativity in groups, developing creative conflict, and using technology to help foster innovation.
	Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking by TimHurson There are thousands of books about thinking. But there are very few books that provide clear how-to information that can actually help you think better. Think Better is about Productive Thinking — why it’s important, how it works, and how to use it at work, at home, and at play. Productive Thinking is a game changer — a practical, easy-to-learn, repeatable process that helps people understand more clearly, think more creatively, and plan more effectively. It's based on the thinking strategies that people we celebrate for their creativity have been using for centuries. Tim Hurson brings Productive Thinking out of the closet and presents it in a way that makes it easy for anyone to grasp and use — so you can think better, work better, and do better in every aspect of your life. Think Better demonstrates how you can start with an intractable technical problem, an unmet consumer need, or a gaping chasm in your business strategy and, by following a clearly defined, practical thinking process, arrive at a robust, innovative solution. Manycompanies use the Productive Thinking model to generate fresh solutions for tough business problems, and many individuals rely on it to solve pressing personal problems.
	Creativity and Innovation in Organizational Teams Organization and Management by Hoon-Seok Choi Leigh L. Thompson Creativity and Innovation in Organizational Teams stemmed from a conference held at the Kellogg School of Management in June 2003 covering creativity and innovation in groups and organizations. Each chapter of the book is written by an expert and covers original theory about creative processes in organizations. The organization of the text reflects a longstanding notion that creativity in the world of work is a joint outcome of three interdependent forces--individual thinking, group processes, and organizational environment. Part I explores basic cognitive mechanisms that underlie creative thinking, and includes chapters that discuss cognitive foundations of creativity, a cognitive network model of creativity that explains how and why creative solutions form in the human mind, and imports a ground-breaking concept of "creativity templates" to the study of creative idea generation in negotiation context. The second part is devoted to understanding how groups and teams in organizational settings produce creative ideas and implement innovations. Finally, Part III contains three chapters that discuss the role of social, organizational context in which creative endeavors take place. The book has a strong international mix of scholarship and includes clear business implications based on scientific research. It weds the disciplines of psychology, cognition, and business theory into one text.
	The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization by Thomas Kelley and Jonathan Littman The author of the bestselling The Art of Innovation reveals the strategies IDEO, the world-famous design firm, uses to foster innovative thinking throughout an organization and overcome the naysayers who stifle creativity. The role of the devil's advocate is nearly universal in business today. It allows individuals to step outside themselves and raise questions and concerns that effectively kill new projects and ideas, while claiming no personal responsibility. Nothing is more potent in stifling innovation.
	Leadership for Innovation: How to Organize Team Creativity and Harvest Ideas by John Eric Adair New ideas and new ways of doing things are one of the main ingredients in sustained business success, but how does one create the right conditions for innovation? Leadership for Innovation will help readers create an innovative climate that encourages the development of new products and services. Drawing upon real-life examples including Google, Honda and 3M, John Adair sets out practical ways for bringing about change in organizations. As well as identifying the characteristics of an innovative organization, he discusses key topics such as organizing for team creativity; motivating creative people, how to build on ideas and how to be a creative leader and team member. Leadership for Innovation shows how to inspire teams to go one step further and generate the kind of ideas that are the foundations of future success.
	CATS: The Nine Lives of Innovation by Stephen C. Lundin It's time to let the CATS out of the bag . . . Curiosity might have killed the proverbial cat, but without it very real achievements would never occur. With this book as your guide, you’ll learn how to spark your innate curiosity, pounce on problems in ways you never imagined, and enjoy greater success and satisfaction at work—and in your personal life. Playful, profound, and positively upbeat, CATS provides what you need to tap into your power of innovation—and then unleash it in every member of your organization. While most business thinkers view this challenge from the top down, Stephen Lundin sees the subject from a CAT's-eye view, explaining how to get every employee--no matter what level--to think and act in innovative ways. Inside, he examines the four challenges to innovation and offers practical measures aimed at conquering them.

The Takeaway

Challenge your staff to think creatively about customer needs in new and unique ways.

Your Turn. Please comment below.

What creativity and innovation books would you add to the list?
Which of the books on the list did you enjoy the most?
If only one book could be written on Creativity and Innovation what should its focus be?

INNOVATION IN 37 TWEETS

Rob Berman — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Innovation is an often written about topic. Many books and articles have been created including one of our favorites Innovation Engine written by DeSai Group co-founder Jatin Desai. We are all pulled in many directions each day. We can find it hard to spend the time reading worthwhile articles and books. Therefore, in the age of Twitter we bring you Innovation in 37 Tweets. Innovation thoughts expressed in 140 characters or less.

QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD ASK YOURSELF

Are you relying on performance engine (short-tem growth) or using innovation engine for long-term growth?
Do you have a solid business sponsor for the game of innovation in your organization?
How different is your business model and its value proposition in comparison to others in the marketplace?
How much more top-line growth can you achieve out of your current business?
Do your managers have the insight to define new problems before others do?
Are you skipping the step of assessing organizational readiness for innovation?
Innovation Readiness: business case, sustained sponsorship, culture/systems, financial resources and program management?
Is your business strategy Pioneer, Fast Follower, Imitative, Dependent, Low-cost or Specialization?
Does your Innovation Strategy communicate why, who, what, how and when?
Do you have too many ideas, just enough ideas or too few ideas to innovate?

STATEMENTS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER

Innovation is bringing heart into work.
Nucleus of innovation is tapping into people's hearts.
Innovators have a thirst for knowledge.
Waiters wait, managers manage, innovators create value.
A rhythm for growth - harvesting a cultural balance between performance (left brain) and exploration (right brain).
Your Innovation Goal should be measurable, customer focused and capable of delivering value.
Organizations must complement the operational performance mind-set with the innovation execution mind-set.
To achieve sustainable growth companies must better integrate product innovation with process and service innovation.
Evolve your mechanistic, bureaucratic and hierarchical practices model towards an innovation-driven executionmodel .
New value creation - innovate to generate differentiated new value and profit.
Once you are ready to play the game of innovation, you will need an Innovation Scorecard.
Create a business case for innovation and supporting innovation strategy linked to business vision and goals.
Build a pipeline of corporate innovators -- the key talent for future growth (intrapreneurs).
The average life span of companies on the S&P 500 has shrunk from 75 years in 1930s to just 15 years in 2000s.
Innovation can build continuous new S-Curves for your organization.
Without engaged employees, sustainable innovation is not possible.
Without continuous failure there is no continuous innovation or evolution.
Most managers are very likely to mobilize an idea if they have 80% clarity about it.
Innovation Intent is easier to identify if the senior team has already declared its strategic intent.
Rampant commoditization and disorder suggests that old methods of diagnosing growth challenges have been wrong.
Globalization and Automation are causing a shortened life span for products and services.
Innovation, if done right, should be an input to strategic planning, not an outcome.
Optimize your innovation engine on the innovation highway - alignment, insights and mobilization are key.
To begin your innovation journey, leaders in your company must take time to develop the innovation strategy.
Sustainable competitive advantage necessitates sustained new innovations.
Build your Innovation Engine to accelerate exploitation of new business ideas worthy of pursuing.
Build your Innovation Engine to improve employee attraction, engagement and retention.

The Takeaway

Regularly re-consider your beliefs about succeeding at the game of innovation by challenging yourself.

Over to you. Please comment below.

What other tweet length questions should we ask about Innovation?
What other tweet length statements should we challenge ourselves with on a regular basis?
What is your best advice on Innovation in 140 characters or less?

Innovation in Highly Regulated Environments - Global Bio-Pharmaceutical Case Study

Rob Berman — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Pharmaceuticals is an industry that impacts each one of us. Due to the highly regulated environment, it is difficult to easily drive product innovations.

Four Focus Areas for Industry Innovation

Therefore, Pharma must focus on 1) business model innovations, 2) process innovations, 3) delivery innovations, and 4) customer experience innovations.

Let’s take a look at how a $26 Billion company with 30,000 employees, in 24 countries based in U.S.

Client Situation:

The client, a leading pharmaceutical company with international operations, was faced with a growth gap, having experienced several years of flat sales and heavy competition in U.S. and generics.

The company had recently initiated a global expansion program. However, they quickly realized that this endeavor would be limited and insufficient in meeting its future growth goals. The company’s track record in organic growth and innovation was limited.

The challenge was to improve the company’s innovation capacity, identify new growth opportunities, and have a showcase success within two years.

Six Stage Approach:

Diagnosis: The DeSai Group diagnosed the client’s current situation, past innovation successes and failures.
Recommendation: Based upon these findings, recommendations for enhancing the company’s innovation capacity were made.
Ideation: Through a highly structured ideation process, DeSai and the client identified and clustered ideas into Value-Platforms.
Evaluation: The various Value-Platforms were created, evaluated, and prioritized.
Refinement: The high priority platforms were further expanded with detailed product and service value propositions.
Final Refinement: Six teams were formed for each platform to further build out business briefs to lead to specific business plans within six months.

Results Are The Measure of Innovation Success

How did applying the DeSai Body of Knowledge impact the company?

A Venture Board was established.
Proposals were evaluated by the Venture Board composed of both internal and external members.
Five candidate business ventures were selected having revenue potential of $350Million.
The existing portfolio was evaluated and 25% of the ongoing projects were halted.
The evaluation process yielded 20% of the client’s R&D resources for re-allocation.
An Innovation Board and Innovation Process Owner were established to lead the innovation projects.

The Takeaway

Through a climate and culture of innovation companies can continue to generate value for everyone within their stakeholder system.

Your Turn. Please comment below.

How does your organization ideate future concepts?
What has your experience been with Venture Boards and similar concepts?
In what types of Innovation does your company focus?

15 Components of Innovation Culture

Jatin Desai — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Our insight, at The DeSai Group, from working with global customers since 1983 is that leadership readiness is the most essential factor for success. Leaders may want innovation, but it is entirely possible that the midlevel managers are not ready, meaning they have no time and no resources and lack the mind-set, motivation, and skills. It is also possible that the current organizational structures are too bureaucratic to welcome innovation thinking.

Let’s look at the 15 factors in the categories of Alignment, Insights and Mobilization

that control innovation readiness and improve innovation propensity at your company.

Alignment

Five alignment factors are related to a business’s ability to recognize, specify, clarify and commit to the purpose of innovation and help achieve predefined business value—your target destination. There is no need to waste time and money on innovation unless it is critically linked to the business strategy.

Alignment is about strategically sponsoring, engaging, monitoring, and supporting all innovation activities at every level of the business structure. If alignment is properly executed and adjusted as the organization matures, the result will be a climate and culture of innovation for long-term sustainable business growth.

Alignment Success Factors	Definition
Innovation Mandate	At the top, innovation is seen as critical to the future of our organization.
Leader readiness	Leaders are prepared to guide the organization’s innovation efforts.
Employee engagement	Individuals throughout the organization are motivated to contribute to innovation.
Innovation support	Organization has effective systems and processes to support innovation.
Systematic approach	There is a clear framework, common language, along with a systematic and well-understood approach to innovation.

What are the signs of an aligned organization for innovation? When alignment is present, you will see focus and collaboration at the right levels for the purpose of achieving organizational and individual goals for both the business leaders and for individuals. True alignment will show up in the form of employees’ desire to engage at work and be effective contributors to the organization, continually looking for new ways to support the overall vision, mission, and purpose of the organization as a whole.

Alignment means that each business unit, department, team, and individual sees and understands its role and how it contributes to the overall innovation mandate of the organization. It gives them confidence that their work is valuable.

Insights

Insights reflect the importance of discovering new ideas—with art and science rather than as matter of luck. It begins with the recognition that information from many sources is essential to developing unique insights that will allow your business to achieve strategic targets.

To develop deep insights about what is possible, you must involve people from all levels of the organization, including partners, suppliers, customers, and regulators. The larger the field of information and ideas, the more dramatic, sustainable, and unique will be your pool of insights. Here we capture a collection of ideas and knowledge, connected or not to each other, for potential exploitation.

Once captured, the ideas must be organized and easily shared with others so they can be enhanced; the result becomes your idea bank. You need a disciplined process to keep the idea bank alive or, like anything else, the ideas will quickly die due to inertia.

Insights Success Factors	Definition
Diverse perspectives	We incorporate a wide range of perspectives in the idea- generation process.
External orientation	We actively engage with the external environment.
Climate/Culture	Our organizational climate and culture support the generation of ideas/insights.
Idea flow	We have strong flow of creative ideas.
Idea selection	We select the best ideas from those that are generated on a timely basis.

How does a company develop this competency for deep insights? In most organizations, to gain insight into projects, market positioning, and corporate performance, they develop and study performance charts, two-by-two matrices, and Balanced Scorecards, respectively. Looking at data in such a way, we are able to develop certain forms of business insights.

Similarly, innovation insight depends on finding (sometimes through visualization and highly diverse group exercises) new knowledge that leads to practical ideas for consideration. When executed well, insights enable creation of innovation platforms (a plethora of ideas to pursue a large multiyear business opportunity) and fresh ideas. This helps managers quickly make investment decisions to accelerate new and novel discoveries.

What is required for an idea pipeline to get fatter and mightier? The most important is to establish climate of trust and openness that support the creative process. You will also need tools for individuals and teams to find incremental and breakthrough ideas.

Mobilization

The focus here is strictly on innovation execution. Our data show that most organizations are weakest in this area. Mobilization reflects the reality that even with strong alignment and a good flow of insights, innovation is only valuable when it is translated into results—that is, executed. The organization with the best idea is not always the winner. Rather, the organization with the ability to execute the best idea is the winner. Especially in today’s competitive and fast-paced environment where maturation from unique idea to commodity is very swift, execution in the early stages of innovation is critical for success.

Mobilization Success Factors	Definition
Resources	The organization allocates sufficient resources to innovation.
Governance	There are effective governance structures and processes for innovation.
Portfolio	Through a structured process, the company effectively manages a portfolio of innovations selected for implementation.
Change management	Leaders create the adjustments required to ensure all innovations achieve full realization.
Execution	The company has a clear process for successfully bringing projects through the pipeline to achieve positive results.

Mobilizing also means you must capture the maximum value of an innovation before it is duplicated, continually improving that product of service to stay ahead of the competition. Effective mobilization calls for sufficient resources; quick and effective decisions; clear thinking about the human impact of new approaches; and continuous learning about how to translate innovations into reality faster and successfully over time.

In summary, mobilization is a set of processes, methods, tools, and structures that will allow employees and managers to operationalize ideas for implementation and venturing in an informed way to achieve targeted business outcomes.

Alignment + Insights + Mobilization = Success

Alignment, insights, and mobilization are all happening at the same time. All three play critical roles in the success of innovation and therefore, the long-term sustainability of your organization. To be successful, you must manage each of them and the trade-offs between them. An idea that has great merit but would struggle to be mobilized in your organization may not be as valuable as an idea with less merit that can quickly be tested and mobilized. A fantastic idea that would be great for your consumer but does not align with your organizational purpose will struggle to receive funding and support over the long term. A great idea for the market but without strong leadership alignment will stay dormant.

The Takeaway

As your organization builds the innovation muscle and the innovation engine continues to grow, you will need to adjust the integration points as a part of the overall business planning conversations and activities at the top.

Your turn. Please comment below.

Do you feel that Alignment, Insights and Mobilizing should receive equal weight in the process?
What have you done to commercialize your idea pipeline?
Which of the 15 factors do you find most important?

Intrapreneurs Must Reference World Authorities To Build Proposals

Jatin Desai — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 14:22:00 GMT

Intrapreneurs are the purple horse in the room. They are working as entrepreneurs within a larger enterprise. Gifford Pinchot III coined the term Intrapreneur to describe them. They want to innovate. Often, corporate culture limits or prevents their ability to succeed.

Business Cases and Proposals Need Research

When I teach intrapreneurs to certify them in the DeSai body of knowledge they learn to create a business case. To turn that case into a full-blown, well researched proposal the intrapreneur needs to reference credible worldwide authorities.

My Favorite Sources

20 of my favorite sources are shown below. These sources are universal. They can be used by for profits and non-profits, large companies as well as small ones. Good luck and may “the force be with you” during your research process.

1	Worldmapper Project Provides cartograms – maps where countries are resized according to a range of economic, social, demographic and resources criteria

2	World Trade Organization Trade statistics, trade news, economic research and publications

3	World Economic Forum Research on wide range of issues related to its agenda; also organizes Davos summit annually dealing with global issues

4	World Bank Economic and financial statistics, including commodity prices

5	Wikipedia Open-source based online encyclopaedia, which is a good first lead for information on many topics BUT always check references and data wherever possible

6	US Bureau of Labor Statistics Research and statistics on all aspects of the labor market in the US, plus international comparisons

7	United Nations Data and reports relevant for many trends including economics, demographics, Millennium Development Goals

8	Strategy & Business Surveys, articles, publications on a range of business topics, on both the Booz site and Strategy & Business site

9	RAND Corporation Research areas include security, international affairs, science & technology, health, infrastructure

10	PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Consulting/Accounting firm offering research/publications on range of business topics

11	Org. for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) Publications and statistics on economic and social issues, including macroeconomics, trade, education, science, innovation

12	McKinsey Quarterly Surveys, articles, publications on a range of business topics

13	McKinsey Surveys, articles, publications on a range of business topics

14	International Labour Organization (ILO) Information and news on international labour standards and human rights; provides international labor statistics and research

15	IMF Range of time series data on GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, payments balances, exports, imports, external debt, capital flows, commodity prices, more and other economic and financial indicators

16	IMD Research, articles and information on critical business topics and issues; and home of the World COmpetitiveness Center

17	IBM Range of research, particularly related to technology industry

18	European Commission Eurostat Publications and statistics on economic and social issues, including macroeconomics, trade, education, science, innovation

19	CIA World Factbook offers basic but useful country information; other reports cover security related matters e.g. fuel use

20	Boston Consulting Group Surveys, articles, publications on a range of business topics

The Takeaway

Excellent research sources help an Intrapreneur change an idea from “I know I am correct” to “of course our company must adopt your proposal.”

It is your turn. Share your wisdom. Please comment below.

What are your indispensible research sources?
What techniques help you best prepare a persuasive proposal for higher management?
What is the relationship between the perceived risk of the opportunity and the length of the proposal you submit?

Leadership Challenge: Ban Inertia for Sustainable Organizational Health

Jatin DeSai — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:55:00 GMT

A place of inertia; indecision, inability to act or move forward, fear of the unknown, not enough information or knowledge, resistance, a lack of direction or clarity. We’ve all been there at some level, at some point, be it professional, organizational, health, investments, relationships or a major purchase.

Implementing sustainable innovation in your organization where there is resistance to change is a lot like changing your diet and adopting a regular exercise program for healthier lifestyle. It makes sense, everyone sees benefits, but implementation is frustrating – our habits may not be the healthiest, but we know them and have a comfort level. We live with them daily and the surprise factor is small, until they catch up with us and a crisis ensues. In hindsight our flawed thinking and outdated strategy become glaring, and the “fix” more difficult if not improbable.

To make any type of significant progress, first there must be intent to change. Resources must be found, and time committed. The principles are fairly basic and simple, but do they all apply to you? Change demands you let go of something or take a chance in order to effect a change, which may or may not ultimately prove beneficial if you choose carelessly or hastily – change always brings risk of injury or loss as well as possibility for great benefit; two sides of the same coin.

The issue which requires change first needs to be clearly observed and defined – critically look in the mirror and acknowledge it’s time to move beyond torpor and procrastination and become more flexible, nimble, defined and stronger.
Strategy must be timely and align with existing structure and goals – be realistic about your resources and mindset.
Assess your options, initially scrutinizing all seemingly viable avenues, seeking other opinions and recommendations from diverse conventional and unconventional sources.
With intent, goal, and commitment in mind, begin to design your sustainable program for ongoing organizational health.

Organizationally speaking, present barriers, opportunities, quantity and quality of knowledge, choices, focus, and risks, will define future possibilities and vision. This Contextual Canvas, is the landscape that ultimately gives rise to innovations. Expand the size of the canvas – increase your knowledge and awareness base for growth – and the probability of finding answers as to how or what is next arises.

OPPORTUNITES ARE JUST AROUND THE CORNER

Opportunities are already present within our organizations, just waiting to be discovered. Clarity is often lacking. Yet, clarity is only one half of the equation to reduce risk and uncertainty. Speed is the other half. Letting fear of risk define your innovation efforts is like snacking large at midnight – the weight goes on and more inertia sets in. Instead of playing it safe, “Play” with worthy ideas, big or small – dip the toe, eat the kale, run the 5K, experiment more and build on your insights, growing useful context.

In short, no matter the focus of your innovation, make innovation itself a core focus, with fast experimentation on a number of fronts. This will yield clarity about functional elements of your prospective solution.

Innovation requires strategic planning, alignment with core values and stakeholders, sufficient investment, continuous idea generation, continuity of effort, sustainability and above all, taking charge. Leadership commitment and skills are essential – to pursue your vision you must become proactive leaving passive acceptance of status quo behind, jumping into the lake with both feet, yet with awareness of where the shores lie, and swim like crazy.

Need more information, help or guidance? Visit our downloads page for great articles, videos and podcasts, or About Us for easy access to Strategy Development, Training & Workshops, and Customer-Centered Innovation.

Leadership role? Visit Innovation Tools.

Google acquires 1,000 IBM patents

Jatin DeSai — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:32:00 GMT

Google has acquired 1,000 patents from IBM.

According to the SEO by the Sea blog, which first reported the purchase, Google bought patents that stretch across several different markets, including one for "Web-based querying" and another for the "fabrication and architecture of memory and microprocessing chips." Google's newly acquired patents also relate to servers and routers, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The price tag for the patents hasn't been publicly disclosed.

Google's acquisition of IBM's patents is a consolation prize for the search giant. Late last month, Apple, Microsoft, Research In Motion, and a few other companies announced that they had acquired 6,000 patents and patent applications from bankrupt telecom-equipment company Nortel Networks. Google had initially offered $900 million for that patent portfolio. Read more

Source: CNET News

Infographic: How Educated Are Successful Entrepreneurs?

Jatin DeSai — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:41:00 GMT

Is there a correlation between entrepreneurial success and a founder's educational background? A survey conducted by the Kauffman Foundation attempted to find out. Below is a visual representation of the results.

Source: Open Forum

Over 4,000 books now available as free PDF downloads

Jatin DeSai — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:24:00 GMT

All PDF versions of books published by the National Academies Press are now downloadable to anyone free of charge.

Makes All PDF Books Free to Download;
More Than 4,000 Titles Now Available Free to All Readers

This includes a current catalog of more than 4,000 books plus future reports produced by the Press. The mission of the National Academies Press (NAP) — publisher for the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council — is to disseminate the institutions’ content as widely as possible while maintaining financial sustainability. To that end, NAP began offering free content online in 1994.

Printed books will continue to be available for purchase through the NAP website and traditional channels. The free PDFs are available exclusively from NAP’s website, and remain subject to copyright laws.

Source: The National Academies Press

How Tiny Whims Reveal Your Deepest Self

Jatin DeSai — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:49:00 GMT

We've all got the vague notion that our little preferences say something about us. For example, you might assume that someone who wears only tight clothing is both a little vain and maybe fast. But take that one step further: Could you use that to surmise their dominant hand or how many hours they sleep at night?

Hunch has used their massive database to correlate millions of personal preferences, and dropped them into this astonishing infographic. For instance, if you don't support the death penalty, you're more likely to have never cheated on a test; if you prefer to squash a bug you see on the ground rather than shoosh it away, you're probably a dog person. See More

Source: Co.Design

15 Killer Questions to help build a New Marketing Strategy

Jatin DeSai — Mon, 16 May 2011 19:37:00 GMT

So you think you need a new marketing strategy? Or do you want to make sure your current marketing strategy is solid. Review and answer the following killer questions to help you develop maximum clarity quickly.

Is there a written strategic plan and/or marketing plan with measurable goals? If not, what is the goal of a new marketing strategy? To achieve what?
What is driving the new “go to market strategy” and what are the expectations from the corporate view?
Are the products the same or repositioned?
Has a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) been formulated and tested?
Is there a plan for implementing and supporting the sales & marketing through third parties; including: training, allocation of transactions, measurement systems, staffing, etc.?
If repositioned, have focus groups been used for strategy evaluation? With ultimate customers?
What is the risk of product cannibalization? For your company and other similar products?
If products not significantly changed, why the marketing change?
How does the competition go to market with these or similar products?
What are the advantages vs. disadvantages of options such as direct selling…different costs, service quality, close rates, margins, training?
How would these products fit into the company strategy? How would these products, being sold through currently, add value in the eyes of the company customers?
What marketing vehicles have been explored to assure success…direct mail, solicitation, co-marketed with other products, etc.?
Are there plans to test market this strategy using a controlled study with market segment variables, such as income, geodemographics, age, penetration by competition, pricing, etc.?
To what extent has market sizing studies been performed and corresponding budgets developed?
How have you integrated Social Networking into the strategy?

Implementation

Option-1: Answer above questions yourself. Distribute the list with answers to your colleagues in your area and outsides your area and in other business units. Ask them to make your answers better (improve) or add new questions and the answers you had not thought of.

Option-2 (4 hours): Run an ideation session. Depending on number of participants, set up working group (round) tables by assigning equal number of participants per table. Assign a question to each table and have them generate ideas using various idea generation Innovation Tools. Give 30 minute per question. Once completed, have each table pick Top 3 ideas and post them on a Top Ideas list at the front of the room. Repeat for each remaining question.

Innovation Q&A with Rob Berman

Jatin DeSai — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:38:00 GMT

My friend Rob Berman had lots of questions about Innovation. He discussed these questions with me and had put together this discussion in his blog.

For all questions and answers of this discussion please visit Rob Berman's blog.

-Jatin Desai

How leaders in your organization are helping employee become Innovative?

Jatin DeSai — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:28:00 GMT

To stay ahead of the competition, a company needs to constantly innovate, especially in the times when new highways and skyscrapers can change a city's look overnight and new flavors in your coffee at your favorite cafe change as fast as it takes to brew a cupful.

But, the question is what does it take to innovate? It takes out-of-the-box thinking in terms of smart strategies, the ability to conceptualize something that is unseen by others and to have the courage to risk everything and bring it out first to lead the industry.

However, in an organization, employees with creative powers and important project managerial roles often lack the organizational support to go with something innovative and brilliant in the fear of being snubbed by the boss or the leader. More often than not, leaders start assuming totalitarian powers over the company's workforce and direct them to work according to certain set parameters and guidelines, such that each and every project starts becoming clone of the other. In our experience, it is this clone-building practice at the level of leadership that causes grave impediments towards healthy and vibrant organizational environment.

In other words, lack of committed leadership support for innovation is the single largest barrier to employees bringing out their very best and being innovative – everyday.

To check whether the leaders of your company are amply motivating the younger and ambitious work force or not, start by seeing whether they are too much into appeasing clients. If they are themselves in the constant fear of rejection by clients and have restricted the use of their brainstorming and creative faculties, chances are they will lead in a negative manner and discourage the teams working under them from carrying out any innovative plan, idea or strategy.

Another great sign to look for is which of the ‘Three-S Mindset’ does your leadership predominantly use to run the business?

‘Start-Up’ attitude: meaning do they love to experiment a lot, fail, learn, and keep experimenting until something new arises? They are customer driven to find solutions to the unmet needs of the market or enhance current portfolio of products to make them better – constantly.
Scale attitude: here, the leaders have the courage to invest and grow the business fast. Leaders have demonstrated the required balance between growth and optimization, but are driven by speed to market.
Status-Quo: here the leaders are wired for keeping things as is and not rocking the boat too much. Here leaders have very low risk-tolerance, proactive about cutting costs, optimize everything, and do not show commitment to long-term investments?

In our experience, leaders cannot afford to only use one mindset; they must use all the three above really well. This means organize the company strategies, structure, teams, and systems to leverage all three without causing disruption or disengagement of the workforce.

Every leadership development program must address development of the ‘Three-S’ mindsets. The DeSai Groups’ leadership programs are based on the principles of rationality and address the inner conflicts of leaders that restrict them from ‘thinking out the box’ and the invisible biases that limit their full attention to innovation and dynamism. Our leadership development programs are based on achieving two broad goals -- the motivation to motivate by engaging leaders of your company in self-awareness programs so that they come face to face with their own weaknesses and mental block against innovation and to show them how your company is under-performing due to these personal limitations.

Thus, The DeSai Group encourage and trains leaders to become sensitive to the talents and skills of the work force while leveraging the experience and expertise of the best talent pools within. Leaders are taught to promote diversity, challenge status-quos, practice three-dimensional thinking, and identify emerging patterns for themselves and their subordinates that will propel innovation in the company. Ultimately, this will allow your company to benefit from their power to innovate.

To build a climate and culture of innovation is a long-term process, which must happen at all levels: leadership, middle-management, work-teams, and at the individual level.

Do not waste your company’s hard earned money on any innovation training workshops until you have hard evidences that your leaders at the top are truly ready to walk-the-talk about innovation process themselves. Only then, you can expect teams and individuals to embrace innovation as way of life in your company.

Nine Excellent Ways To Stifle Innovation

Jatin DeSai — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:17:00 GMT

Innovation doesn't just happen…it comes from awesome intrapreneurial teams. Are you or your company guilty of killing good ideas?

Yes, everyone at the top is interested in innovation. It has become a business mandate in many organizations. But are the leaders serious? We find that plenty of companies are not walking the talk. They want innovation, but also don’t want to recalibrate the organizational systems. These systems are where a good idea has as much opportunity to succeed as me going to the moon. Why so?

For starters, organizations do not have an internal muscle for a creative process. The creative process is not well understood and it is truly a fragile process. This situation promotes uncertainty; something most leaders do not want to spend time on. Additionally, there are very few internal experts who can support it and nurture it like there are for project management processes, customer service processes, budgeting processes, etc. This is very tough in today’s short-term focus surrounded by the fear-inducing environment of rapid technological change and dynamic markets—but this also makes innovation essential.

So what to do? First, kill the innovation killers. Here is our list of innovation killers that will need significant moderation if not surgical removal. You can discover for yourself if you have an environment that is crushing good ideas or allowing growth and change to be welcomed.

Clear(?) and cumbersome approval processes, rules, regulations for every action at every level within the organization. Making decisions takes forever and when they are made, they take forever to implement. Too much process everywhere.
Silos are promoted. The organization loves to allow departments and individuals to compete against one another for resources and protect their areas.
The truth is one-sided the truth comes mostly in the form of criticism without praise. The glass is always half-empty. The focus is so much on execution, that the culture often forgets the impact on human spirit.
Don’t trust new ideas. All ideas are evaluated with great suspicion and ‘yes, but’. When someone contributes a new idea, the first thing someone says is ‘yes but…’ followed by ‘not sure if we can do that, or we have never done that before, or management will not approve it, etc.’ Moving away from the status quo is very difficult and not often welcomed.
Control and calibrate everything. The organization is very systematic, dashboard driven, precise, and project managed. Although all of that is very essential, the system does not allow for any quick experimentation of new ideas or technologies with spontaneity. Missing target goals is frowned upon more than the lessons gathered through failure.
Organization is very secretive. Restructuring, product launches, competitive news, and executive changes all occur in a secretive manner. Leaders believe that “the less people know, the better they can stay focused on the day-to-day job.” The firm does not like to share bad news with employees until the last minute.
Promote class-based relationships. There are seniors and inferiors. Seniority and tenure are heavily used to promote fear-based execution. The culture perpetuates the idea that seniors know everything and they should get the best of everything. The higher you are up in the ladder, the more you are allowed to look down at others. Unpleasant duties can be delegated to inferiors.
The pyramid is inverted. The higher-ups know everything important about the business, and the bottom does not need to know how the business should be conducted; as long as they do what they are trained to do.
Leadership is invisible. Leaders are not able to connect to employees. Employees do not have confidence in the leaders based on their action and those of the top management team.

Design Thinking: 11 Ways to Open Your Innovation Lens! (Part 2 of 2)

Jatin DeSai — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 15:50:00 GMT

In my last post I talked about organizations tapping into the collective pool of Design Thinking to unleash the Intrapreneurship in everyone. Through this process I strongly recommended to learn to see “with a new lens” Here are 11 practical ideas that I believe will spark innovation! .

Here are my suggestions on how to come up with some great new ideas and build your new lens:

1. Think when you are not thinking. For example, going on a run or a walk, cooking at home, cleaning the house, doing the yard work, etc. Asking questions to stimulate curiosity and creativity has proven helpful for all kinds of endeavors, whether problem solving, product development, inventing, or communication. Begin by The Journalistic Six:

1.1 Who? (Actor or Agent) Who is involved? What are the people aspects of the problem? Who did it, will do it? Who uses it, wants it? Who will benefit, will be injured, will be included, or will be excluded?

1.2 What? (Act) What should happen? What is it? What was done, ought to be done, and was not done? What will be done if X happens? What went or could go wrong? What resulted in success?

1.3 When? (Time or Timing) When will, did, should this occur or be performed? Can it be hurried or delayed? Is a sooner or later time preferable? When should the time be if X happens?

1.4 Where? (Scene or Source) Where did, will, should this occur or be performed? Where else is a possibility? Where else did the same thing happen, should the same thing happen? Are other places affected, endangered, protected, and aided by this location? Effect of this location on actors, actions?

1.5 Why? (Purpose) Why was or is this done, avoided, permitted? Why should it be done, avoided, permitted? Why did or should the actor do it? Different for another actor, act, time, place? Why that particular action, rule, idea, solution, problem, disaster, and not another? Why that actor, time, location, and not another?

1.6 How? (Agency or Method) How was it, could it be, should it be done, prevented, destroyed, made, improved, altered? How can it be described, understood? How did the beginning lead to this conclusion?

2. Listen to classical music. Go to a concert or a play or sit quietly in the park to daydream. Scientists at Stanford University, in California, have recently revealed a molecular basis for the "Mozart Effect", but not other music. Dr. Rauscher and her colleague H. Li, a geneticist, have discovered that humans perform better on learning and memory tests after listening to a specific Mozart's sonata. Recently, a new book called The Mozart Effect by Don Campbell, has condensed the world's research on all the beneficial effects of certain types of music. According to the research outlined in the book, musical pieces, such as those of Mozart, can relieve stress, improve communication and increase efficiency. Creativity scores soar when listening to Mozart. In 1996, the College Entrance Exam Board Service conducted a study on all students taking their SAT exams. Students who sang or played a musical instrument scored 51 points higher on the verbal portion of the test and an average of 39 points higher on math.

3. Read periodicals you would not typically read - a scientific magazine, for example, if you are more interested in business; or books outside your typical genre. In order to generate Diverse Thinking. Diverse Thinking has proven to be a critical competency in the creative process. Howard Gardner notes in Creating Minds (1993): "In contrast [to convergent thinkers], when given a stimulus or a puzzle, creative people tend to come up with many different associations, at least some of which are idiosyncratic and possibly unique. Prototypical items on a creativity test ask for as many uses as possible for a brick, a range of titles for a story, or a slew of possible interpretations of an abstract line drawing: a psychometrically creative individual can habitually issue a spectrum of divergent responses to each item, at least some of which are rarely encountered in the responses of others." If you really want to be inspired, here are top 50 inspirational website.

4. Attend a conference or a meeting outside your field. By learning about other fields, you will develop some knowledge that eventually connects to other ‘dots’ in your life. Every sector is changing at a great pace. Be open to learning about how another industry works. Conferences and networking groups are the perfect forum to help you accelerate in a new subject. There are countless stories of how someone invented something because they were in a totally neutral environment. Being ‘away’ from your daily routine is a sure bet to help find creative solutions for your existing challenges. One of my favorites learning venue is the TED Conferences, along with the Discovery Channel when I cannot travel but still want to get away.

5. Surround yourself with creative thinkers. Most organizations do not hire creative people. They hire for skill and “fit for task”. The hiring process is designed to improve predictability, reliability, and conforming to organizational culture. So, the chances are there are more ‘alike’ people in your area than there are ‘different’. This does not mean people are not creative. It means most working people do not practice tapping in to their natural creativity. According to Wall Street Journal, Mr. Marc Parker, current CEO of Nike, loves to look for that creative edge in unusual places and with unusual people, a perfect example of how to do this. So, it is up to you to bring out your own because others are not likely to help you, especially your manger. So, find some creative thinkers who are comfortable looking at things through a different lens, or are not afraid to challenge assumptions, or who naturally love to explore ‘newness’ in everything. Find people who love to doodle, draw often, or who are exceptional storytellers.

6. Immerse yourself in a ‘real’ problem. Ask questions, investigate possible outcomes. Nothing really can be explored without asking great questions. Most of us have never attended a course on ‘how to ask questions’. But, we know, without questions, there can be no new answers. Many people focus on results first and not enough on understanding the problem first. In our training workshops, we often teach a technique called State-Restate. In this exercise, the student starts with writing a current challenge they are working on; in an open-ended question format. We then teach them to restate the questions in eight different ways. By the time they are done with the entire exercise, 100% of the people experience much greater clarity of their ‘problem statement’ than before. This exercise clearly illustrates how people often attempt to solve something that really was not the actual problem needing a solution. Once the problem is clear and concise, then dive in. Most likely, you will want to jump to a solution fast. Don’t. Follow these ‘innovation process’ steps instead:

First, find a small team (3-5 people) to work with you on this problem for an hour.
Second, diverge – without judgment, without limitation, without constraints. Do not converge or select ideas yet. Look at your problem from 360 degrees (we call this Lensing); from everyone’s perspective – your boss, your colleagues, customers, suppliers, intra-company stakeholders, etc. Do not be ‘biased’ by your own thinking. Keep diverging until you are exhausted. If it is a small challenge, you should have at least 20 ideas to consider. If it is medium or a large challenge, you should have at least 100 ideas to pick from. We have generated over 400 ideas in 15 minutes when we have worked with groups of 30 or more.
Finally, converge and select the few best ideas needing further nurturing. There are many voting techniques you can use. Contact us, and we can send you some ideas.

7. Keep an idea journal. Find your strong hour of the day and have your journal ready (maybe AM). What is an Idea Journal? An idea journal is accomplished when we take the time to commit our ideas to paper. It makes no difference whether it's done with a notepad or a fancy journal. The effect is the same. All your ideas need to be recorded. Why is it important? Throughout the course of any given day countless ideas come and go our way -- even though many of them may appear to be unrealistic to us at the time. For most of us, we simply discard them as a passing thought. The problem with this is that what we previously believed to be unachievable can change drastically as our minds are expanded with each new success that comes our way.

My best hour is from about 5:00am-6:00am. Some days it extends through the 30 minute car commute to the office. That is the time I have the most coherent concepts and feel a flow of what next actions are ready to get done. If you have a smart phone such as BlackBerry, iPhone, or Droid, you can use one of many ‘idea’ recording applications, such as from Dragon Software, where you speak your idea into the phone and it will transcribe as text. Then email it back to yourself or to someone else, to record into your journal. This is an excellent way to use technology to capture any ideas, anywhere, anytime.

8. Take a course to learn a new language or some other skill outside your expertise. Across the world, the emphasis these days is on a multicultural working environment. If you are in the US or in India the chances of you getting a job in Europe has increased, if you speak at least one European language. Companies place premium on communication globally and if you are able to communicate in the local language of the company, you already have a lead. It is also proven that people who speak and write in multiple languages seem to score better in life. In the US, The College Board, the primary testing authority for college admissions, calculated correlations between length of study of certain subjects, including English, math, biological sciences, physical sciences, and social studies, and Scholastic Aptitude Test(SAT) scores, and found that in almost all cases the longer a student studied one of these subjects, the higher were the scores. However, the verbal scores of students who had taken four or five years of a foreign language were higher than verbal scores of students who had studied any other subject for an equal length of time. Similar results have been obtained by other researchers who have examined foreign language study and SAT scores.

9. Be curious and experiment. Curiosity leading to innovation has been a hallmark of American society and was provided for in Article 1 of the Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." President Obama reminded us in his inaugural speech by saying "upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism...” In today’s no-nonsense environment, where everything is on a ‘machine-like’ pace, those who can stand out will rise to the top faster. Those who demonstrate curiosity and tenacity to experiment will become visible.

In our experience, we have noticed that leaders value people who display a never-ending curiosity for the many facets of the business. Similarly, successful employees as intrapreneurs display a never-ending curiosity that emerges as "passion" in a meeting room filled with people. What better measure of passion than curiosity? You can see its presence or absence in interviews, meetings, telephone conversations, or luncheon chatter. You can display it and you can discern it. Be curious about everything with everyone, and in every part of your life. If anything seems ‘boring’ to you, you have not been curious about it.

10. Articulate your idea, seek feedback from co-creative’s, or other people you trust. Put structure on it, harvest it. Everyone thinks they have the next big idea, just ask a venture capitalist. Over 95% of new small businesses fail because the owner had an idea that he thought was great. The problem was no one else thought it was great. Since the early days of modern commerce, there have been plenty of ideas to exploit in every sector across the globe. According to the TRIZ theory, there is no such thing as a ‘new’ idea. TRIZ says, all ideas and innovations follow one of 36 patterns of possibilities. So practically speaking, real innovation ideas are those that solve an unmet need in the market. So it is not about having new ideas or not, but it is about getting them out there first and fast. If you have an idea, quickly test it within your network, especially with those who have no affiliation with your idea. Testing an idea with your coworker is one thing, but testing it with your customer or with people who are not current customers will give you the best insights on the applicability of the idea. You will get more precise feedback about the need and impact of your idea without too much effort. If you keep finding ideas and testing them with the same people every time, you will get the same results you get today. Seek feedback from collaborators and creative’s.

11. Create a Greenhouse for your ideas. Young ideas need a Greenhouse for protection. In most cases, environmental forces within an organization will kill the idea before it becomes real in the explicit world. Locate who or what brings down your energy level. There are four primary negative forces designed to kill your ideas immediately. The first is time, the second is money, the third is people around you, and the fourth is yourself. For each, identify how to reduce the negative influence on the fresh ideas that desperately need ‘Greenhousing’; some attention, protection, nurturing, and growing. Greenhousing means keeping the ideas safe, then growing them naturally by being more curious, researching the elements and finding possibilities for impact. Don’t force them to sprout too early; that is, don’t tell others or discard them. Give these early ideas timely attention in the Greenhouse until they have some viability. Once you have confidence in the idea, share it with others for further discovery and testing.

How can you add some of these to your list of ways to find inspiration and problem solve?

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Design Thinking: 11 Ways to Open Your Innovation Lens! (Part 1 of 2)

Jatin DeSai — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 18:15:00 GMT

I believe that innovation arises from ideas. Ideas show up when one applies a process of being creative. Creativity is shaped by an individual's engagement. Engagement and commitment to one's work is directly linked to clarity of Personal Values and the Organizational Values of an institution for which one works. Personal Values are molded based on one's Spiritual Integrity (alignment of thoughts, words, and actions). Spiritual Integrity is the expression of one's deep self-awareness of their inherent Human Values. Human Values are the same in all human beings. One's ability to unearth the Human Values distinguishes one's moral compass vs. that of another - sometimes we call that Character.

Therefore, if an organization wants to create a climate and culture of innovation, the best possible lasting solution is to help every employee and leader become more self-aware; more in touch with who they are and what they personally value. And I don't simply mean the definition of personal values but rather the expression of those values; i.e. how do those values show up in their work? - In their projects, in their email communications, in writing a proposal, in negotiating terms with a vendor or a customer? This self-awareness will allow everyone to 'tap into' their inner source where very powerful ideas are sitting dormant.

Great innovation leaders figured this out a long time ago - i.e. innovation arises from one's (or the team's) deep passion for something much bigger than themselves. These leaders have learned how to create ‘drive’ (as Daniel Pink describes in his recent book with the same name) for themselves as well as for their teams. We call this Design Thinking. When an organization taps into the collective pool of Design Thinking, they unleash Intrapreneurship for all.

Practicing Intrapreneurs, using Design Thinking, are the best source for Innovation.

The problem: It is difficult to find such leaders. Even if you do, it is harder to find organizations that practice Design Thinking and Innovation as a core expertise. So, how does one become an Intrapreneur inside an organization irrespective of corporate culture?

The first step we strongly recommend is to learn to see “with a new lens” – which is easier said than done. (My next post will include 11 Practical Ways to Open Your Innovation Lens!)

Chuck Palus and David Horth, authors of The Leader's Edge: Six Creative Competencies for Navigating Complex Challenges, speak about the need to “see with new eyes”. Human beings are magnificent, imperfect, and predictable, and do not like change. That is why the entire Change Management field was born – to help organizations adapt to a constantly changing world. Since the days of Adam and Eve, Man has learned to lead his life through habits; looking at things with the same eyes, analyzing it with the same logic and creating the same perceptions. It is easy to get used to this routine. Most managers act the same way. According to the authors, most managers “act on what they expect to see”, take shortcuts, do not spend enough time analyzing information and making a sound judgment. It’s as if the managers are walking around blind-folded since they have already created built-in perceptions of what they see.

In my opinion, the only way Man changes, is through the emotions of Love or Fear. Love as passion, to desire, to achieve, to give, and Fear as the feeling of failure, loss, negative judgment by others, and death. These two emotions are at the center of human motivations.

Without motivation, permanent change cannot occur.

Without change, nothing new can be innovated.

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