| Innovative Design Solution | 中文 | ||
Sep 22, 2009, Beijing, Sep 23, 2009, Suzhou |
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| Q: How could we create new ideas continually? | |||
A: Innovation is not a one-time event. It is a journey. New ideas come from the recognition that old ideas no longer work. All product solutions begin to degrade the day they are introduced. Three forces of change assure this. They are: (1) the constantly changing customer wants, (2) rapidly changing technology, and (3) the competitive marketplace. Suggestion: Apply the Sharks of Change Check List in your InnovationCUBE User Guide, p. 31. The Three Sharks tool forces you to anticipate the problems of the future so you can begin creating the right kind of solution ideas. |
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| Q: How could we identify if the new ideas is realistic or just an idea at the beginning? | |||
A: Start by understanding and applying the rule of “Search for Green Bananas”. This rule says ideas are of three types: Brown bananas, yellow bananas, and green bananas. Brown bananas are ideas past they prime. They might have worked before but no longer will meet the wants of the marketplace. Yellow bananas are ideas that are ripe and ready for picking. However, yellow bananas are visible for your competitor to see. Yellow bananas mean that competition will be fierce. Green bananas are ideas that are ahead of their time. They are ideas that can meet customer wants that have yet to ripen. By spotting them first, you will have an advantage. You will be able to shape your business model and products to take advantage of them. |
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| Q: How could we transfer the idea in mind into a real product? | |||
A: The InnovationCUBE gives you a step-by-step way to convert mental ideas into real products. The definition of a product must always begin with the values it will deliver. By values, I mean the attributes or characteristics that it must have to satisfy your customer’s value equation. There are eight fundamental attributes that all customers want from a product. The InnovationCUBE gives you a way to systematically convert these values ideas into a real product. Suggestion: Read p. 41 of the InnovationCUBE User Guide for how to do this. |
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| Q: How could we speed up the innovation process? | |||
A: Speeding up the innovation process happens when you have a step-by-step way for doing it. This is the primary purpose of the InnovationCUBE. It enables you to first ask the right questions, the beginning of our innovation quest. The CUBE then gives you a step-by-step way to find the best solutions to those questions. Everything in life always takes longer when you do not have a process for doing it. |
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| Q: How to identify/recruit a correct people who can lead innovation? | |||
| A: Innovation leadership is the ultimate personal skill today in China. Knowing how to apply it well will give you a clear advantage in business. I have met a lot of people who can generate a lot creative ideas. However, the task of converting ideas into successful business solutions is the real challenge. Here is what we have learned from our experiences at the Institute: 1. Innovation leaders must be able to dig out of the ruts of traditional thinking. Your greatest enemy for tomorrow’s success can be today’s success. Sometimes the difficulty is not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. At the Summit you will learn a way to help you and your company do just that. 2. Seek diversity. Innovation leaders welcome diversity in thinking. Leaders encourage diverse views, especially at the beginning of their project. They encourage people to speak out, not matter how “different” their ideas. This is difficult when we are not comfortable with this. At the Summit, you will learn a way to do this without anyone losing respect. 3. Innovation leaders seek many solutions. They realize there is nothing as dangerous as an idea when it is the only one you have. The encourage creating many solutions before they narrow them down to only a few. They realize the first idea is never the best. And that the second and third are only steps in the journey of innovation. At the Summit, I will share with you how to do this in a step-by-step way to explore new areas of opportunity for your company and you. |
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| Q: Must innovation be a breakthrough of technology? | |||
| A: This is one of the most common misconceptions about new products. The most successful products were not from new technologies, but the use of existing technologies in a new way. Think about YouTube. The three young people who created it did not “invent” anything new. All they did was to combine existing technologies in a new way. They combined the availability of low cost video equipment, the ease of using the Internet with the human desire for social communication to come up with a winner in less than two years. They sold YouTube to Google for USD 1.6 billion. Here are some questions to ask about your new idea to make sure you are one the right track for a breakthrough product. 1. Will our new idea deliver value to an unmet want? Unmet wants are what the customer may not even be expecting. Unmet wants are like YouTube. There was no loud “voice of the customer” asking for it. The YouTube heard the “unspoken voice of the customer” and responded with a product before anyone else could hear it. 2. Will our new idea create ownership of the customer domain? Ownership of the customer domain means you have a direct relationship with your customer market. You can hear what the customer is saying about your product. You can also learn about your customers’ new needs. Many China companies have not developed this customer intimacy, valuing mass, unbranded production. 3. Will our new idea deliver multiple revenue streams? Multiple revenue streams mean not only product sales, but services as well. Services can generate more revenue at higher profits if developed correctly. General Electric is a dominant player in China and globally because of their strategy of offering services with their jet engines, power plants, water purification and other systems. 4. Will our new idea result in asymmetrical competition? Symmetrical completion is where you go “head to head” with your competitors. You both offer the same product, with only price being the differention. Asymmetrical competition is discovering “blue ocean” opportunities where no competition exists. Asymmetrical product development is the practice of finding and developing these potential markets. At the Summit, I will be sharing with you these product development tactics, as well as four others that will enable you and your company to grow faster and with more profit. |
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| Q: What is Open Innovation? | |||
| A: Open Innovation is a new term with already many meanings. Let me share with you what I believe it means and how you can learn how to practice it: 1. Open Innovation is being open to new ideas, not matter where they come from. There is nothing permanent in life except change. New ideas seldom show up in old directions. Winston Churchill, the famous statesman from England, once said: “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off if nothing happened.” 2. Innovations don’t occur in a vacuum. At the Summit, you will learn about the “Three Sharks of Constant Change.” These are the three forces that assure there will always be new opportunity for any company who is willing to know them and anticipate where they are going. 3. Use Outsight. Outsight is the ability to discover new ideas outside our normal education and experience. Outsight may enable you to find a new material or manufacturing process you can use to reduce cost or improve quality. However, the most powerful kinds of Outsights come through analogies. The innovator of Velcro saw a cockle burr on his trousers, looked at it through a microscope and saw a new hook-and-loop system of fastening. A Ford Motor Car engineer was touring a meat processing plant and saw how they were “disassembling” a cow to make packaged meats. He took this idea back to Henry Ford who reversed the idea to create the first modern mass production assembly line for automobiles. 4. Open Innovation is not relying solely on your own company’s resources for developing new products. Proctor & Gamble, the giant consumer products company, now requires that 50% of its new products come from outside sources. At the Summit, you will learn how to systematically develop Outsight. |
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| Q: How can an idea become an innovation? | |||
A: A study of corporate innovation once showed that it took more than 1,000 ideas to come up with a truly successful innovation. Ideas that result in patents don’t even qualify as innovations. There are more than 2,400 patents from mousetraps in the U.S. Patent Office, with more than a dozen new ones being approved every year. Yet the mousetrap that still dominates the U.S. market is a wooden spring trap device invented more than 100 years ago. |
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| Q: What is the relationship between brainstorming and open innovation? | |||
| A: All innovation must begin with finding unmet wants. At the Summit, you will use the InnovationCUBE, a systematic way for discovering unmet wants. Brainstorming must be focused to be effective. The CUBE focuses your brainstorming effort. It helps you not only identify unmet wants but also to find solutions for those unmet wants. At the Summit you will be using the CUBE to do just this. You will learn how to combine brainstorming with open innovation to come up with the most optimum solutions. | |||
