One of the best ways to innovate is by copying an idea that works somewhere else and applying it in your business. How do you get the ideas? You can go on a field trip or you can sit at your computer. There are a number of excellent sites for spotting new entrepreneurial ideas that you can use. I would recommend Springwise.com
It uses an army of 15000 spotters in 150 countries who identify and report on interesting business innovations. You can search by keyword or by their own category listings. Try it for your business sector.
Another site to try is Trendhunter. Good hunting!
I have written up the brainstorm methods I use in a series of articles and tutorials.
In particular I recommend SCAMPER for product or service innovations and Transformers for process innovations.
For general brainstorming the Nominal Method and Reverse the Problem are easy to use and effective.
Please let me know if you need advice or help with your brainstorm.
Paul Sloane
http://www.destination-innovation.com/articles/?p=671
 Do you know anyone who has done something really innovative in a town? Please enter them for the FT City Ingenuity Awards
The Financial Times has launched a quest to find people and organisations who have developed inspirational solutions to urban challenges in the fields of education, healthcare, energy and infrastructure. The FT and Citi want to recognise those original and practical solutions to urban problems that have a positive and fundamental impact on cities and their inhabitants. And they want to celebrate the leaders of those initiatives.
The deadline is April 30 – so get cracking!
Paul Sloane
Let’s play a game. It costs you $1 to play. We then roll a dice once. If it comes up 6, I pay you $10 otherwise you lose. Do you want to play? Most likely you will agree to play. You have a one in six chance of winning $10 for a $1 bet.
Now let’s make it $1 million to play. Once again we roll the dice just once. If it comes up 6, I pay you $10 million. Do you want to play? The probabilities are exactly the same and so it should be an easy decision. But most people would decline. Would you risk your home and life savings for a one in six chance of winning $10 million?
Now let’s imagine you are the CEO of a business which turns over $50 million and makes $2 million profit every year. You have say $2 million cash in the bank. Joe, your VP of Marketing, comes to you with a proposition. He wants to enter an exciting new market with an innovative product. It will cost $1 million to develop and launch the product. There are many imponderables but if it is successful he estimates it will add $50 million in turnover and $10 million in profit over the next three years.
You cannot forecast what the competition will do but taking a cautious approach your conservative estimate of the chances of success are 1 in 6. Should you go ahead? Let’s assume that you have no better uses for your cash and there is no cheaper way of testing the market. What would you do?
Most CEOs would make the decision based on how they felt about the product idea and how much they trusted Joe. Let’s say you go ahead and after one year the product has failed. Some unforeseen difficulties with the technology or marketing or distribution or competition meant that you could not make it a success. You learn what lessons you can and move on.
Now Joe comes to you with a different idea. Strangely the figures are exactly the same as before – $1m investment gives a 1 in 6 chance of a $10 million return in profits. You examine all the assumptions and they check out. Would you agree to Joe’s request? The probabilities are exactly the same so you should make the same decision but most CEOs would hesitate. You decide to go ahead and unfortunately the product flops.
What happens when Joe comes to you a third time or a fourth time? In theory you should expect failure 5 times out of 6 and keep faith with Joe. However, in human and emotional terms it becomes very difficult to keep placing bets after a string of losses. Most likely you would say to Joe, “Sorry, but your track record on these projects is poor. We cannot keep risking that kind of money.”
You might find that Joe quits and starts his own business. You focus on your current business and the company enters a long period of decline because it lacks new sources of revenue growth. Eventually you sell the company to a larger competitor for a disappointing price.
What are the lessons here? Innovation is a risky business and often involves many failures. Even with the best market intelligence and research it is impossible to forecast exactly how things will turn out. Should you roll the dice, risk your scarce resources and face the pain of failure?
Wherever possible you should test prototypes in small experiments so that you can learn lessons quickly and cut your losses on failures – but that is not always possible. It is important to recognise that you cannot avoid risk. Doing nothing is risky; you will get left behind. Courageous leaders keep taking calculated risks even after a string of setbacks. Eventually you will roll a 6.
Paul Sloane
Fast Company has published a list of the 50 most innovative companies 2012. The top 10 are:
1. Apple
2. Facebook
3. Google
4. Amazon
5. Square
6. Twitter
7. Occupy Movement
8. Tencent
9. Life Technologies
10. Solar City
The list is a subjective choice by the magazine and is dominated by US companies and high-tech companies. But ther reasons for each choice are given and it makes compelling reading. It is interesting to compare this list with the one put out by Businessweek. They collaborated with Boston Consulting Group to publish their 2010 list of the 50 most innovative companies in the world based on a survey of corporate executives. Bigger corporations dominate the list. Their top ten was:
1 Apple U.S.
2 Google U.S.
3 Microsoft U.S.
4 IBM U.S.
5 Toyota Motor Japan
6 Amazon.com U.S.
7 LG Electronics South Korea
8 BYD China
9 General Electric U.S.
10 Sony Japan
There is no objective way to rank innovation success but reputation matters so the lists are instructive. They are both sourced in the USA and that heavily influences the choices but even allowing for that the absence of European companies is telling.
Paul Sloane
I recently spoke at an Open Innovation Conference in Stockholm organised by Uppsala University. You can see all the presentations here:
http://openinnovationday.net/category/speakers/
And watch videos of the speakers here:
http://openinnovationday.net/category/videos/
I would particularly recommend the talks by Howard Smith of CSC and Rick Wielens of Nine Sigma.
Paul Sloane
It is common to approach suggestions schemes, brainstorms and ideation meetings from a competitive point of view. So we might say that we want a large number of ideas and then by a darwinian process we will eliminate the weaker suggestions and choose the best. People might vote on the proposals and the most popular win through. This approach will work if the challenge is clearly stated in terms of desired outcomes and evaluation criteria, and if the process is well facilitated. However there is another approach which can sometimes give more focussed and therefore better results. Start with a small number of broad concepts and ask for ideas which add to the understanding, appeal or feasibility of the concepts. The initial concepts can be situations, challenges, proposals or ideas. People work in a supportive and collaborative mode; typically to build out the concepts and improve on them.
So in your suggestions scheme or ideation process you can start with a situation and ask for input, insights and deeper understandings. You can state some desired outcomes and ask for advice and ideas on how to get there. People from across the organisation can contribute to the ideas or issues that interest them and constructively comment or add to the discussions that they see.
One way to use this technique in a brainstorm meeting is by using the phrase, ‘Building on this….’. You state the challenge and then each person silently develops a radical idea or an ideal solution. These are shared. Then we take the first idea and everyone in turn has to add to it by starting their contribution with the words, ‘ Building on this idea…..’. More and more ideas are added to the initial concept to make it different, more appealing, simpler, more effective or better. Then we move on to the second idea and repeat the process. Every initial idea is developed in this way and then we move into convergent mode and select the best proposals based on our evaluation criteria.
For your next brainstorm meeting why not try this method? You will find that it leads to a more collaborative, constructive and additive atmosphere which often results in successful and creative outcomes.
Paul Sloane
 Have you seen The Artist? The film recently won the best film award at the Oscars. It is a charming tale about the transition from silent movies to talkies. It is remarkable for a number of reasons – not least because it is a silent movie in black and white with unknowns as stars.
It seems to me that we can learn some innovation lessons from this film and its appeal to audiences. First, the story relates how success is transitory and those who cling to what worked before are rendered obsolete when the market moves onto to new products, services, methods or technologies. If your success is based on what happened in the past rather than what clients will demand in the future then you are at risk of the same fate as the stars of the silent movies who could not adapt to talkies.
Secondly the film deliberately discards current fashion and heads in a completely new direction. Many modern films rely on big stars, fast action, computer graphics or 3D. The Artist has none of these. It tells a simple but powerful story about human emotions and it does it without spoken dialogue or even colour. It purposefully avoids current paradigms in order to make itself unusual and distinctive. If your competitors are adding new features and technologies then perhaps you should innovate by moving in the opposite direction by making your product or service simpler and easier. Can you appeal to basic human emotions in a more direct way? Can you plunder the past to find something which is different and distinctive in the present?
Please see the movie and then ask yourself how you can apply its lessons to your business.
Paul Sloane
We often find ourselves in a position where we need to influence other people. We might want to change their mind, to sell them on an idea or to secure their agreement to a proposal. A fruitful way to approach these situations is to use the three Greeks, ancient concepts that are proven to work. In my experience most people use only one of the three Greeks and they would be much more effective if they used all three.
 The three Greeks are Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Ethos refers to values and standing, authority and credibility. The word ethics derives from the Greek word ethos. Pathos in this context means feelings and emotions. The words empathy and sympathy are derived from the greek word pathos. Logos means logic, reason, and analysis. When we try to persuade people using facts, statistics, deduction and reasoning we are using logos.
How can you use all three Greeks to increase your effectiveness? Let’s start with ethos. Why should someone listen to you? What authority do you have? When you hear a speaker introduced at a conference there is often a short description given of the speaker’s achievements and credentials – this establishes their ethos. It gives the audience a reason to listen and believe. If you are meeting someone for the first time it pays to establish your credentials and expertise – preferably before the meeting but otherwise early in the meeting. The trick is to do this without sounding as though you are boastful. In a preliminary email you might say something like ‘I have worked in this field for 7 years and have helped XXX and YYY to successfully accomplish ZZZ.’ Or you might insert a link and say ‘I thought you might possibly be interested to read this article I published on the subject. The purpose is to establish some level of standing and authority before the meeting. If you are expert it is important to communicate your expertise.
Pathos involves appealing to the feelings of the person or people you are meeting. If you listen to the speeches of Martin Luther King or to the pre-election addresses of Barack Obama you will observe they appeal heavily to emotion rather than logic. They paint a vision of a better future in which people can have hope and pride. These speeches were highly effective in changing people’s minds yet in everyday conversation we tend to shun emotional appeals. But people’s feelings are powerful forces. If we can appeal to pride, excitement, altruism or hope then we can inspire people to change. We can also talk about fear, disappointment, anger and frustration as emotions that can be overcome.
The third Greek is the one that most of us use most of the time. We appeal to facts, rational arguments, logic and reason to advance our case. ‘The reason we should do this is because it will save money and increase sales.’ These might well be good arguments and we should certainly deploy logos to advance our cause. However it we can first establish our credibility with ethos and then also appeal to pathos by painting a picture of a better future in which we can be happy and take pride then we are much more likely to persuade. If we can convince with logic and emotion then we will be doubly effective. Don’t take just one Greek to your next meeting or presentation – take all three.
Paul Sloane
The recent successes of the dramas War Horse and Birdsong have revived interest in World War I and probably reinforced some stereotypes. The Great War of 1914 to 1918 was an extremely bloody conflict with more than 9 million combatants killed. It was characterised by static lines of defence and attacks which were repulsed with great loss of life. It is widely thought that the carnage was the fault of the unimaginative generals who routinely ordered their troops over the top and into certain slaughter. However, this is unfair. The generals did the best they could in the circumstances. The timing of the war was particularly unfortunate coming as it did after the invention of a number of things which favoured defence and just before some inventions that favoured attack. Let’s look at the three key innovations that shaped the war.
1. The Machine Gun. Sir Hiram Maxim invented th first self-powered machine gun in 1885. He used the recoil power of the previously fired bullet to reload thus enabling a high rate of fire. The machine gun was a highly effective static and defensive weapon which was ideal for mowing down advancing infantry.
2. Barbed Wire. Barbed wire was patented by Lucien Smith in 1865 in Ohio in the USA. It was developed as a way of containing cattle on the great plains of the American mid-west. However, it proved to be a cheap and deadly defensive technolgy in warfare. It completely negated the effectiveness of cavalry (which was still used by all armies until this time). It was also very difficult for infantry or artillery to cut through it.
3. The Telephone. The Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. The First World War was the first time that the telephone was used extensively by generals and their staffs to communicate with front lines and to issue orders. Lines were laid to all forward positions in the trenches. This was very useful in defence. News of enemy attacks could be quickly relayed and forces redeployed. However, the telephone was not much use when you attacked as you could not immediately take the lines with you. If you took an enemy trench you did not have the means to tell your remote commanders where you were or what you needed.
The British and French introduced the tank during the war but it was not until after the war that it was developed into a fast, robust and effective weapon. Machine guns and barbed wire were no match for it. Furthermore the development of planes and parachutes meant that static lines of defence could be outflanked.
The timing of World War I meant that the generals had excellent defensive technologies but lacked effective offensive options. It was these technologies that shaped the war into the dreadful slaughter that it became.
See also – World War I – Misrepresentation of a Conflict
Paul Sloane
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