Hey, You Got Your Innovative Ideas In My Process Expertise!

Cass PursellPrematurely born innovations generally do not fare well when released too soon into the innovation pipeline. Further, we know from our experience with Lean Six Sigma that clogging the innovation pipeline with too many projects will cause the overall … Read More

VOC and Innovation, Friend or Foe?

Bob Carter

At the recent PDMA Voice of the Customer Conference in Scottsdale, I moderated a panel that discussed whether the Voice of the Customer and Innovation are friends or foes.  Certain industry and thought leaders believe that Innovation gets derailed … Read More

Tens of Innovation

Praveen Gupta

Learning innovation is critical for me in order to teach innovation. I read about other people’s work, and try to expand my understanding of innovation. Recent trend in offering recipes of innovations sound confounding to me. For example, some … Read More

What Did You Do This Year?

Jack Hipple

What Have You Done in the Past Year?

It’s nearing the end of 2007 and it’s been a turbulent year for many businesses and organizations. Everyone seems to recognize the critical role that innovation plays in the long term … Read More

Forbes on Key Business Questions

James Todhunter

I stumbled across an article on Forbes discussing “The 20 Most Important Questions In Business”.  The importance of innovation to a businesses strategy is underscored by this list of questions.  Here are some of the questions identified by Forbes … Read More

Crowd Innovation

James Todhunter

“Avoid the crowd.  Do your own thinking independently.  Be the chess player, not the chess piece.”— Ralph Charell

Crowdsourcing seems to be a popular topic these days.  But, I can’t help thinking that its popularity will be short lived.  … Read More

Innovative Companies – Most, Best, or Managed

Praveen Gupta

The list of Most Innovative companies in Business Week interests me a lot. I do not know what to do with the list. What can one learn from the companies listed on the list? They all look good companies, … Read More

Patents – Innovation Killer or Innovation Accelerator

James Todhunter

It seems every time I scan the recent blog postings on innovation, I see at least one or two posts declaring patents are stifling innovation.  This certainly wasn’t the intent of the patent system.  To the contrary, the idea … Read More

The Sin of Underestimation: Poltava and the Battle of Moscow

Michael S. Slocum

The Battle of Poltava was a resounding victory for Peter the Great. He defeated Charles the XII and 14,000 Swedish cavalry with a superior force of 45,000 Russian soldiers. The battle lasted all day with the outnumbered Swedish … Read More

Corn Fields and Anti-bodies

Jack Hipple

Managing Innovation–A View from the Experts

The September 24 edition of the Wall Street Journal contained a special section focusing on their annual innovation awards. A panel discussion (including IDEO, Packer Design, Cisco, and Google) was held. Both the … Read More

The Four Archetypes

Cass PursellIn my last post, I referenced a recent article found on Forbes.com. The article, “Built for Innovation”, was written by Stephen Wunker and George Pohle. Wunker leads the healthcare, financial services, and telecom industry practices at Innosight, one of … Read More

I’m Going to Eat Your Brains and Gain Your Knowledge

Michael S. Slocum

OK not really. However, I am going to describe an approach to innovation that does allow you to leverage the intellectual capabilities of OTHER problem solvers for the generation of solutions to YOUR problems.  This can be achieved … Read More

Mimicking Innovation

Cass PursellFor every Google, for every Nintendo, there are a thousand copy cats. Success breeds imitation in innovation, as in everything else. But what is striking to me about the organizations that attempt to mimic another company’s successful innovation process … Read More

National Innovation Initiative

Praveen Gupta

In 2005 US Congress passed the innovation act with the intent of increasing research investment, increasing science and technology talent, and developing an innovation infrastructure. The legislation required to establish the President’s Council on Innovation for promoting innovation in … Read More

Intellectual Property Protection

Praveen Gupta

In recent discussions about intellectual property it has been reiterated that only about 5% of patents are of any significant value, and the rate of success for R&D driven innovation is also about 4 – 5%. So, I am … Read More

Can Johnny Innovate?

James Todhunter

Innovation consultant and occasional blogger Jim Belfiore is teasing us with “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate – Introductory Article.”  In this post, Jim promises to deliver us some interesting insights into the challenges that keep engineers and designers from become … Read More

ETRIA – Day 1 Afternoon

Ellen Domb

The main conference opened in the afternoon with greetings from the Frankfurt Chamber of Commerce, and the joint sponsors, Dr. Rolf Herb from TRIZ Centrum and Prof. Gaetano Cascini from ETRIA. Gaetano announced that the membership meeting on Thursday will … Read More

European TRIZ Association TRIZ Futures 2007—Day 1 Morning

Ellen Domb

Today is the beginning of the European TRIZ Association TRIZ Futures 2007, in Frankfurt, Germany. Most sessions have either 2 or 3 simultaneous papers. See www.etria.net for the full program—I’ll only report on the papers and sessions that I participate in. I’m … Read More

2007 TRIZ Conferences

Ellen Domb

August-November have been very busy and interesting conference months. The TRIZ Journal will reprint some of the best papers from each conference (with thanks to the authors and the conference organizers) but I am a great believer in the … Read More

Innovation–There and Not There

Jack Hipple

In a Business Week issue last year (Special Report,12/11/06) there was a fascinating article about Best Buy (the giant electonics retailer) pushing the limits of workers not being required to be at their workplaces. This follows trends established by … Read More