Functional Discontinuity

Michael S. Slocum

Many times a system is improved by increasing the performance of a particular function in a system. For example, if the function of fuel efficiency in an automobile is important, a system improvement might involve a system … Read More

Dynamism in Innovation

Jack Hipple

What’s dynamism? It’s the changing of a product, system, or service in response to “something” or a pro-active management of a product, service, or organization in response to both anticipated or unanticipated conditions. In my opinion, it is one … Read More

Open Innovation

Michael S. Slocum

Why Go to Conferences?

Ellen Domb

TRIZCON 2008 concluded on Wednesday, April 16 with Jack Hipple’s seminar on How to Use TRIZ with All the Other Innovation Tools and Assessments You Are Using and my presentation of “Contemporary Su-Field Analysis”  which was developed by Iouri … Read More

Tuesday at TRIZCON2008

Ellen Domb

Mansour Ashtiani won the election for President of the Altshuller Institute, and Don Masingale will become Secretary.  Tim Schweizer and Richard Langevin continue as VP and Treasurer, respectively.

The conference began with a fascinating talk by Dr. Cemil Inan, … Read More

Monday at TRIZCON2008

Ellen Domb

 Amir Roggel from Intel started the conference with a masterful keynote address—he applied his TRIZ sensibility to create a talk that was both educational and entertaining, and a true “key” note, setting themes for the conference of modernizing TRIZ … Read More

Trizcon2008 – Sunday Report

Ellen Domb

The experimental workshop on the US$10million Automotive X-Prize at the Altshuller Institute TRIZCON2008 started Sunday morning with delegates from Germany, Israel, Ireland, UK, Korea, Taiwan, and multiple parts of the US;  from the electronics, automotive, aerospace, control systems … Read More

Eight New Trends – Or Examples of Well-known Trends of Evolution

Ellen Domb

Consultants write articles for a lot of reasons.  Two leading reasons are (1) A genuine desire to share their research with the world (2) To show how smart they are, to get people interested in hiring them.          

Since I … Read More

Changing Your Focus

Katie Barry

I don’t get a lot of forwarded emails from friends and family; I’ve trained them to only send me the “best of the best.” Today, one video appeared in my inbox that not only intrigued me, but seemed worthy … Read More

iSixSigma Live! Seattle Networking Party

Katie Barry

If you live near Seattle and would like to hobnob with the area’s finest business process improvement practitioners in a casual after-work setting, attend the iSixSigma Live! Social and Networking Party at the Rock Bottom Brewery in Bellevue. (iSixSigma.com is a … Read More

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Lynda Curtin

I have come across the compelling work of creativity expert, Sir Ken Robinson, which I want to share with you via his very funny and dramatic presentation – Do Schools Kill Creativity? He delivered this presentation at a TED … Read More

A Vote for Process Innovation

Cass PursellThink of the most innovative companies in the world. Better yet, pick one. Focus on it. Get it firmly in mind.

How much of that company’s annual revenue is represented by new products? If it’s a young company you’re … Read More

Structure is a Good Thing

Cass PursellI’ve been reading a lot about how government can and should stimulate innovation, particularly in relationship to the emerging economies in India and China. The consensus seems to be that innovation flourishes in areas that are particularly free of … Read More

Innovation in Small Businesses

Praveen Gupta

How can a small business benefit from innovation? Can small business afford innovation? How can innovation help small business grow revenue, and how quickly? These are some of the most frequently asked questions about innovation.

I believe most of … Read More

A Recession is Coming (?)

Jack Hipple

I was asked recently to contribute to the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Management Division newsletter and thought I would share a modified version of it with all of you.

A Recession is Coming, A Recession is Coming….

Is the sky falling … Read More

Organizational Brownian Motion

Michael S. Slocum

Brownian motion is the random movement of particles suspended in a liquid or gas. This phenomenon was first observed by botanist Robert Brown in 1827 (“A brief account of microscopical observations made in the months of June, July … Read More

Technology Forecasting: How to Practice

Ellen Domb

TRIZ Journal readers have been given more terms for this one element of TRIZ than any other—laws of technology evolution (many translated texts), guided evolution (Victor Fey), directed evolution (Alla Zusman and Boris Zlotin), trends of evolution and evolutionary … Read More

An Innoholic

Praveen Gupta

I met Wayne Rothschild about three years ago at a Kellogg Innovation Network meeting. We both were consultants and were looking around for contacts. We connected. He told me had 55 patents and I had just completed development of innovation framework. … Read More

Sound Guidance From Four Top Practitioners

James Todhunter

It is always interesting to hear the insights of leading innovation practitioners.  The article, “Instituting Innovation: Tell-all advice from 4 leading practitioners”, posted on Core77 doesn’t disappoint in this regard.  Here Arkadi Kuhlmann, CEO of ING Direct Bank; Ken … Read More

You Measure What Matters

Cass PursellIs innovation mutually exclusive with continuous improvement? “Incrementalism is innovation’s worst enemy!” Sam Walton has declared. “We don’t want continuous improvement, we want radical change.” Large, established firms seem to find it much easier to focus on incremental improvement … Read More