Inspire innovation and innovative culture, evaluate opportunity and show it the way to the market

Too much Information: good or bad?

In my last post I covered the new phenomenon called Information overload.
As we know the problem today is not, that there is no information, but that there is too much information. As the situation is getting worse each day, serious questions about problem-solving and decision making are being asked.
Many bad decisions are made as a result of poor information. Decision making and problem-solving are in fact twin brothers. Decision-making can be described as a process of choosing a suitable solution to a problem from amongst a number of different solutions to a problem.
The more detailed analysis of the pros and cons of each of the aforesaid solutions is being made to get the better the decision. And one of the factors to be addressed in the decision-making process is getting right information to support these pros and cons at the right time.

But how can we reach it?

Brian H. Ross, William J. Ryan, and Patricia L. Tenpenny of the
University of Illinois addressed the issue recently:
”As the emphasis in problemsolving research has shifted to the knowledge required
to solve problems, increasing attention has been focused on questions about the access and use of such knowledge”.

Claremont Colleges library even put a very short guide to the process of getting relevant information on your subject. It includes Determining the Kinds of Information You Need and Choosing Appropriate Information Sources.

It’s interesting though, that even if you use a very organized approach to your information resources’ choice, you’ll definitely need to use a combination of different sources and your research process will take time, efforts and most likely some money.

So at this point we can agree, that the range of available information is (sometimes) too large and time consuming to find and check and delays decision making. And in this perspective it is bad.
The existing information sources are not always organized for helping you find relevant information (like news portals); but if they are, they usually charge their users – this trend is strengthening; and what’s more – they lack objectivity. Give it a thought: any piece of information can be shown in different perspectives. (A student gets a bad grade – it can be displayed as his lack of knowledge, the teacher’s lack of necessary teaching skills, etc.)
Mostly there also exists the lack of necessary capacity to analyze various pieces of information.

Not quite inspiring, is it?
Unless there is someone that does the work for you: online and for free. (What a relief :-))

In this respect I recently came over an interesting resource, that aggregates, analyzes and displays relevant and accurate information online or ad-hoc for free. It’s a United Nations – “InfoShare project”. It gives commodity producers access to the information they need to negotiate better prices and get their produce into higher-paying markets. InfoShare is partly a communal service and partly restricted to partners who have agreed to participate.

There is an initiative in the UK, named iKnow that puts together examples of training materials which will help you save time in finding, using, and organizing information at work. These can be really helpful.
You can watch it here:

I have to say that these guys are really doing a great job! It’s a pity though that these kind of projects are not common, it would help me a lot. And I think I’m not alone in my secret desire, am I?

So where do you guys use to go in order to get affordable, accurate, relevant and timely information?
Keep me posted!



How do you fight Information overload?

 

Today I’d like to draw your attention to a phenomenon, that is called “Information overload”.

The Information Age opened a new era of human knowledge perception. The amount of information we are exposed to these days is enormous. On-line media (both Internet and Mobile) erased most of the barriers: you don’t need to wait till a big publishing house decides to print your work, instead you can publish it on-line. The most prestegious newspapers and magazines now have an on-line version.   According to recent statistics the amount of digital information being created in the world and distributed in emails, instant messages, blog posts, new Web pages, digital phone calls, podcasts and so on, will increase 10-fold over the next five years. The one fact that stands out is this: the growth of information is relentless.

Here is a nice video, showing us the way “information came to see the world”.

So until this point, we could have clapped our hands and jumped on our feet in great agitation: our right for freedom of speech and expression is being fully satisfied!

But then comes  a point when we need to find information we are looking for. It used to be so easy – go to the library, enter the catalogue… All this is history now. Today we need more and more refined tools to get information, that interests us. The speed with which our life changes brings us an urgent necessity to stay tuned and of timesaving, accurate and relevant information. And it is right here we come to understand, that Information overload, which makes decision-making hard, irrelevancy of information high and time spent unproductively, is one of our new enemies.

Ted Koppel – a senior news analyst for National Public Radio and contributing analyst to BBC World News America speaking about  information puts it roughly: “The future generations won’t be able to make any sense of the amounts of information, that exist today”.

 

There is so much information it’s almost impossible to digest!

So I seek to make information my servant by refusing to allow it to become my master. I understand that my capacity to mentally handle all the things that are going on is finite. So I don’t read or watch stuff I’m not interested in. When I need information for my research or decision making process I personally use these tools:

1. Search engines – a lot of stuff other people like,
2. Newsletters – a lot of news and facts (usually not relevant) just to keep me updated,
3. RSS feeds – the same as above,
4. Research – needs time and financial recourses,
5. Online Video and presentaitons – very informative,
6. Polls – quick and not expensive, when conducted on-line,
7. “Ask & Answer online” tools – lots of them, not so effective though,
8. Asking friends on social networks – quick, cheap, opinion based,
9. Asking real people – if I can find a real expert and then connect his opinion to the facts I already have – that’s a win-win situation!

So this is how I’m trying to get the best out of the Web.

And what do you do to get through this information overload?

How do new trends emerge?

Have you ever wondered how new trends emerge?

Technological trends, like other trends emerge from observation, observing the “cool”, using the “cool”, transforming and adapting the “cool”. People or organizations that are using the cool technological innovations they discovered for themselves, start influencing people that surround them, their co-workers or competitors. People usually think: “If he is so “cool’ and he is using this or that, why not give it a chance and try it too?”

It’s difficult to notice the beginning of a trend, and trends can sometimes be misinterpreted as fads or vice versa. You may take a fake that will disappear in a month for a next big thing or argue that some innovation will fail to succeed and it’ll reach the top and become a trend.

Some people were talking about social media like a fad a year ago. Some continue to argue. Recently I’ve come across a really convincing presentation on the subject:

I think that people’s inborn qualities like optimism and skepticism may sometimes influence the judgment.

Trends are born when the right time for an innovation to hit its customer comes. Technology has to be developed enough and the customer as well has to be ready to accept a new trend, he has to be at the right level of an anxiety to satisfy the need new technology is going to evoke in him. 

Have you ever thought that tablet PC is up in the air since 2001? Why is it that only in 2010 it is becomming a trend?

Have a look at this video to have a short answer:

Innovation dictates the future tech trends. So the future is being transformed by new inventions. The Wrights were interested in transforming the future. They invented the airplane and changed the whole perception of distance and time necessary to cover it.

The paradox of trends is that they provide an inspiration for new ideas and a spur for innovation as well. There is a lot going out in the world, people observe it, think it over, research, use the coolest, create a trend, which in its turn inspires others to innovate.

How can we prevent innovation and creativity from causing negative results?

There are no limits to human imagination and creativity. Those who dare to be inspired by their ideas and take actions to achieve their goals are leading us to progress. They are not afraid to innovate.

Not everyone views the process of innovation and the term creativity as positive ones.

Why?

The 1^st and the simplest reason is that we are programmed to resist change and innovation and creativity always mean change. But eventually most of the things or processes are reinvented or redesigned. You just have to be wise enough to do it properly.

The 2^nd reason is that not all of the inventions are harmless and can promise to be used for the welfare of humanity. Look at the atomic power – a “peaceful” invention of unlimited source of power energy that lead to one of the most, if not the most, dangerous inventions of the 20th century – the invention of the nuclear weapon.

The 3^rd reason is that inspiring creativity can bring negative results. If you inspire creativity with no actual goals, you may inspire chaos. As Deming put it: “Encouraging creativity may challenge processes and could result in tampering or too many changes at once without the means to link cause and effect.”

So looking at inspiring creativity and innovation we must bear in mind seven simple questions:

1. Why are we inspiring creativity?

2. How are we doing it (tools, methods, enablers)?

3. When is the best time to do it?

4. Where is it appropriate and where is it not?

5. Who is conducting the process and who is involved?

6. What desirable outcome do we anticipate?

7. What can be the undesirable outcomes?

If we are sure to know the answers to all these questions, there is no harm in inspiring creativity and innovation. We have to give an objective view of creativity and innovation, by revealing the risks they involve, like failure, for example. Taking too many risks can lead to failure; you can consider this as an opportunity to learn or to learn how to take measured risks.

By inspiring innovation and creative mindset, by providing the tools for guided and structured creativity processes we may lead to the creation of a diversity of innovative ideas.

Have a look at what J.J. Abrams has to say on the subject:  

Who will gain if the teens and youth be inspired to innovate?

 

In a traditional production-oriented economy, growth is driven by producing more of the same. Wealth has been about growing more wheat and building more traditional houses and opening more traditional factories this year than last year. Today’s economy can be called “Innovation economy”, because in the 21st century growth is about doing more new things this year than last year. That is a fundamental shift, one clearly visible to people around the world in their daily lives.

 Innovation is today the most important driver of economic growth. Innovation is not just a creation of a new idea. It’s a long process of creation, evaluation, commercialization, giving and perception. Making innovation happen is a craft and an art.

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician, discovered in 1847 (before Pasteur’s germ theory) that the occurrence of childbed fever was drastically reduced if doctors delivering babies washed their hands. Semmelweis managed to all but eradicate childbed fever in clinics where previously more than 1 in 10 women had died during childbirth; he produced statistics proving beyond doubt that hand washing had saved their lives. No one believed him; he finally lost his job and social status. Such a small innovation, washing hands before delivering babies, how many lives could Semmelweis saved? So please accept that innovation won’t occur if the community sees no value in the proposed new practice.

The old economy feared innovation, today countries, that prevent its citizens to fully expose to innovations (like Cuba) put themselves aside the new global innovative economy.

Earlier generations gave a much different and simpler explanation about innovation: “Innovation”, they said, “Is what young people do, not necessarily just an individual, but a whole generation as well”.

The Book of Joel (chapter 2 verse 28) says that the old dream while the young see visions. Youth has been the major force in the historical development of the modern world.

As previously mentioned youth has an inborn desire to make the world a better place, so by encouraging the innovation in youth we are inspiring them to build a better world.

By teaching youth to innovate we’ll teach them to adopt the new rules of the game our world created. They’ll grow into innovation culture; they’ll know for sure, that hand washing may save people’s lives.

They’ll also be ready to visit TomorrowLand as Walt Disney imagined it:

Why should Teen & Youth Tech Innovation be inspired?

 

Today any country’s future prosperity and quality of life depends on its ability to be competitive in a knowledge-based, global economy in which science and technology play a vital role. Although some may argue, that most natural resources are still playing an important role in a global economy, the 21st century demands a highly skilled, well-educated workforce. It’s a given fact that globalization wipes the boundaries and this workforce can be perceived as global.

Technology plays the most important role in today’s progress and many countries, including the US see the strength in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields as the indicator of a nation’s ability to sustain itself.

So the natural course for the society is to encourage STEM fields’ studies. It will naturally prepare youth for the demands of the 21st century.

But is it enough to bring support and create a real innovative culture?

Teens and youth have an inborn desire to make the world a better place, they have the capacity for real action and an air of optimism.

Surveys conducted in different countries show that more than 1/3 of all teens reported having a great idea for a unique invention. What they seek for is an encouragement and guidance from adults.

Josh Schuler, executive director of the Lemelson-MIT Program, a nonprofit initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose mission is to recognize outstanding inventors, encourage sustainable new solutions to real-world problems, and enable and inspire young people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention says, that “Today’s teens are inheriting our society’s environmental challenges, so their confidence and optimism that the problems are solvable is promising and exciting. However, we owe our youth the tools they will need to solve these challenges.”

Schuler noted that 40 % of the teens in the US who are most confident in their ability to invent are most likely to believe their high school is preparing them for a career in technology or engineering.

“It takes practice. Students need the opportunity to get their hands dirty and invent,” he said. “Generally speaking, there’s not enough ‘learning by doing’ taking place in today’s high schools, and our survey found that students recognize this.”

So we educate youth for STEM fields, give them environment to invent. But does it imply we support innovation culture and let them grow into it?

Most definitions of “Innovation” include the application of new ideas or approaches to a process or product. In this way, the word has been used extensively by those examining the commercialization of new ideas or organizational behavior in business. The concept of an ‘innovation culture’ is more elusive and has been the subject of considerable discussion. Culture is a reflection of a group’s beliefs and values. An innovation culture therefore, might be defined as a population that understands and embraces the importance of innovation. It demands that all people in the defined group are engaged in innovation; not only a small subset of people who are specially trained.

In his in interview to Harward Business Publishing David Kester, Chief Executive, Design Council points out that in order to create innovation you must create a culture of innovation.

Actually, to get youth embrace innovation and grow into it, the whole society should stand behind and support the “innovatization” of culture.

Then the efforts to educate youth to innovation will lead us to societies that welcome change, are prepared to take measured risk, and create new ideas to drive innovation.

On the contrary without innovation culture countries will not survive.

Want to check if your country has an innovation culture?

1. Try to find out how frequently interesting new ideas, concepts, products, or services are produced in your country. How many IPOs were executed last year?
2. Have you been exposed to/involved in an internal discussion in your society focused largely on innovation?
3. Does your country’s policy favour innovation? What budget (percentage of your country’s GDP) was secured for Innovation Support programs?
4. Is there any  governmental educational support of innovation?
5. Are there programs supporting Leadership for Innovation?

The positive answers indicate, that you live in the society, that supports an innovation culture and invests in the development of human talent to meet the demands of a global, knowledge-based economy.

Got negative answers? Start serving the Innovation Cause! Let me and others hear your voice!

User-driven technological innovation and idea evaluation process

The process of innovation includes evaluation of the idea/concept at some point. We can also agree that the best understanding of customer needs is the source and the driver of the innovation process. And, that in order to obtain a higher user value, innovation should somehow involve the user.

“The customer is at the centre of user-driven innovation, and it is the expectation and the desire to fulfill a customer need in an improved fashion that drives innovation. On the other hand, research remains the focal point of technology-driven innovation. Here, the researcher’s desire to develop groundbreaking technologies that outperform existing technologies remains the key driver in the innovation process. Companies will of course expect the new technology to have a commercial potential, but it is only later that such a potential is realized.” – Jørgen  Rosted , User-driven innovation. Results and recommendations, #13, October 2005

Evaluation of commercial potential of the idea is a rather complicated process. Here it is usually where the needs of user-driven and technology-driven approaches of innovative productive process meet.

Many companies use tools to involve potential end users in this process. The evaluation of the idea, that is made by real potential end users  can provide understandings of user future behavior, prove the innovation to be practicable, that it has a real opportunity to create or serve the real need, that it has unique qualities, and offer the potential consumers some valuable benefits which they will be ready to pay for.

Charles Leadbeater mentions that companies that don’t involve future consumers in the process of innovation are “missing the opportunity that some consumers have some important things to say not about existing products, but about their future products.”

He adds, that “if you can embrace critical and creative consumers as part of your innovative process your consumers will know a lot about your product, what they can do, how they can be improved, what features could be added.”

The authors of the book  “User Involvement in Innovation Processes. Strategies and Limitations from a Socio-Technical Perspective”, edited by Harald Rohracher, Profil Verlag München, 2005, do not uncritically embrace the perspective of increased user participation, but suggest, that there are also limitations and barriers for participation strategies.

They argue, that there are more than one straightforward answer the question :”What role do users have to play in technical innovation processes?”

Someone by accident or deliberately may disclose the idea and the innovation may cease to be the property of the entrepreneur/company that invented it.

Someone may be forced to give his or her opinion of the innovation not deliberately.

Potential end users who will be chosen to take part in innovation process and then will evaluate the idea must thus be very reliable.

Some aspects of the market opportunity evaluation of the new tech idea

Most of the entrepreneurs prefer to get opportunity evaluation of their idea before they start investing their time, money and good will in its development.  Most of them believe that their idea is the best and unbeatable, so the process of evaluation is only to strengthen their belief.

But unfortunately, professional evaluation may have more than one “happy ending” result.

To be prepared to the process, have a look at this article: http://www.venturechoice.com/articles/opportunity_evaluation.htm 

If the evaluator rejects the idea/concept, it can have different outcomes.

1. The first and the most predictable one is that the entrepreneur will leave the idea and pass to another one. This way the entrepreneur loses the idea and the world loses the opportunity to see a new technological product or service.

The entrepreneur may even take this failure very personally and consider himself a loser. This outcome is not new, and the most difficult part in it is that the entrepreneur should prepare himself to accept the verdict and the outcomes. Each entrepreneur falls in love with his idea and as a person who is in love with someone/thing he may not see the flaws in his idea. If he decides to evaluate his idea he has to bear in mind that it is the idea and not he personally is surpassing the process. In the end, there are so many other ideas that one can think of!

 2. Another entrepreneur can try to fix the idea by slightly, but constantly changing it. The process of the improvement can continue until the idea proves to be executable, accomplishable, feasible and practicable. This entrepreneur will lose some time and energy, but will gain the proven concept.

Cooper’s Stage-Gate process (Cleveland 2005) points out two major stages of idea evaluation. The first one is called Opportunity Identification. It is the original screening of the idea at the stage when the Idea is generated. The second one is called Opportunity Investigation. It provides the second screening of the idea  in between the stages of Preliminary Investigation of the Idea and its Detailed Investigation.

What one can easily learn from Cooper’s process is that the idea is nor something static. 

The site  http://www.prod-dev.com/stage-gate.php  provides statistics in the field of New Product Development. It states, that “an estimated 46% of the resources that companies devote to the conception, development and launch of new products go to projects that do not succeed – they fail in the marketplace or never make it to market”.

And if one wants to make his idea to see the world in its best form, one will have to elaborate it, widen it, bring more and more context into it, continuously estimate its market opportunity and only then carry it out and continue to evaluate and adjust it till it reaches the market.

Here is my TIP:

If you are undergoing the process of evaluation of your idea,

1. Try to look at your idea as a professional, not as the owner. Bring as much knowledge in the field of your invention as possible to have a real good value evaluation.

2. If the evaluation fails, don’t take it personally. Choose to leave the idea or elaborate it.

3. If you choose to leave the idea, make the decision consciously and not out of fear and despair.

4. If you choose to elaborate the idea, prepare yourself to an endless way of idea/concept incarnations. Sometimes you’ll be surprised to learn, that the product that reaches the market is quite different from your original idea. The only thing that matters, is  that it is yours and you made it!

Is My Invention Patentable?

Is my idea patentable?

 To find this out is sometimes very difficult. Initially, you should do a bit of research on your own, usually by looking up in journals and on the internet.

Try to understand if there are patents in the field of your expertise and what is really patentable.

 The next step is to document your idea thoroughly and then seek expert help from a patent attorney specializing in the particular technical field. As the titles “patent attorney” or  “patent agent” have different meaning in different countries, find out what meaning is applied to them in your country and which services the organization or the person you would like to start working with provide.

At first they will have to get you the indication of idea evaluation before you spend money on patent lawyers, business consultants etc.

To check if there is a necessity for your future product/service, try to identify or look for trends, that will prove the necessity you are going to answer. Try not to underestimate the time limits: if your product will see the light in a year and there is an urgent necessity in your product now, you may find yourself missing the opportunity, when you finish your development. There may be other companies that have identified this necessity and the trend prior to you, they may have applied for a patent in the same field. You should take this into account, when you start planning.

 Most of the inventors know what will the future product do and how it will be used, but less of them think who and why should or shouldn’t pay for it. There is an endless number of business models and you may not be sure enough about the one you should apply to your future product/service. This is one of the critical points in the idea evaluation, for may be your invention is nice, but no one will want to pay for it. And unless you wish your invention to fit in one of the lists of “All Time Useless Inventions” like this one:

http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/comment/10-all-time-useless-inventions/  or this one : http://villageofjoy.com/30-worlds-strangest-inventions/ you’d better be thinking about who is going to pay a bill for using it.

 How do you know, that your idea is enough elaborated to go for real? Does this question bother you? Even the most self confident people try to get the answer to this question. The point is that a slight change in the concept may change the whole future of your invention.

Think about it.

 So once again, in order to know whether your idea is patentable:

1. Do your own research over the web and in professional literature.
2. Document your invention in your own words.
3. Seek for expert help from a patent attorney in your field.
4. Do not think that patenting your invention will solve your marketing problems: check if there is a real necessity for your future product
   1. Take time limits into consideration,
   2. Look for trends/future trends,
   3. Think about the end user – the reason he will want to pay for your product.
5. Think your invention over and over again – give it the deepest thought ever. Remember: even a slight change in concept may influence the future success of our invention, so better patent something valuable.

Who can evaluate your business idea?

The traditional thinking will bring us to very limited sources of idea evaluation: friends and acquaintances, business consultants, venture specialists, people with entrepreneurial experience.

The process of idea evaluation will require great patience from you, for most people tend not to get inspired at once, they like to be skeptical and to criticize. Don’t take their censorious remarks personally, just try to wear their hat and look at your idea from another angle.

Those who’ll get inspired will try to rethink the idea together with you.

All of them may bring new perspectives to the concept you’ve thought of. You have to be patient and wise enough to accept it.

All of the evaluation sources mentioned above will bring the adult approach to evaluation. Probably their evaluation will prove right, but are you sure your future end users will share their view? What if a little shift in the approach to your idea will change its future? You can’t be sure that you have a full idea evaluation/validation until you expose your idea to the real world.

And in the real world you’ll soon find out that although we live in an adult world and have an adult-centered views, we are influenced by no means by the very exciting, and teeming youth subculture. This subculture is one of the most important cultures in the world in our days. Young people love new technologies, they speak its language, and they are most likely to be the first to use them. So don’t undersetimate the importance of getting a fresh look and a piece of advice from the potential adopters of your new product/service.

In 2002 UNESCO issued a practical manual on how to conceptualize structure and facilitate the participation of young people in the community development process. They called it “Creating Better Cities with Children and Youth”. In the foreword to the review you may find this statement: “Children and youth are seldom involved in the construction of their environment. They are considered too inexperienced, too unrealistic, too unqualified. Yet their fresh perspectives may be exactly what is needed to see clearly into the realm of new possibilities.”

You may be interested to read the report to clarify the importance of youth involvement in the innovation process and idea evaluation. http://www.unesco.org/most/guic/guiccbccy.htm

So in order to make a proper evaluation try to use as many sources as you can:

• friends and acquaintances,
• business consultants,
• venture specialists,
• experienced entrepreneurs and
• the last, but not the least – youth.