Innovation: Myths and Mythstakes

Those on the Innovation bandwagon continue to hammer the "true" themes of innovation:

"Listen to the consumer"

"80% of all new innovations fail"

"Brainstorm More"

Which is why the book Innovation: Myths and Mythstakes is truly something different. It offers a thorough treatise on how some of the common conceptions about Innovation are not true. Knowing this helps you in the analysis of the often quixotic decisions that are required in the murky world of new product developement.

The fact that it's written by three guys from the consultancy LaunchForce, who also have worked in industry offers the book several advantages. These guys have seen the real world in action an understand how unquestioned paradigms can hijack an organization into making bad decisions (New Coke anyone?). They use their independence and experience to illustrate how many of today's conventional wisdom's are false.

Additionally, these guys know how to write and the book is an fun read.

The book does offer some disappointments though. First the book don't stress the point that Innovation, like any project, takes a tremendous amount of hard work both at an individual and organizational level. It's not enough to have the right idea.

Second the book devotes too much time talking about the benefits of consultants. Granted consultants can come into an organization that is willing to learn and teach them something new. The giant caveat is that the organization must be "willing to learn". Consultants can not make a firm successful, the firm has to make the firm successful. This point was never fully developed in the book.

This book will not make a difference in the day to day life of the average product developer. But where it works so well, and why it's useful, it that if offers arguments about Innovation that haven't been treated elsewhere. For those looking to expand their critical thinking about the strategery of Innovation this book offers a lot of help.

Book Review Editorial Policy

One of the perks of updating a blog regularly is that people often send free books for you to read. This a pretty cool thing. It makes me wish I could write a blog about expensive cars or triathlon gear.

However, what is not cool is writing only favorable reviews in an attempt to get more free stuff. The best part of this blog is that I am not beholden to anyone; I get to do what I want.

So here's the editorial policy of the blog:

If I get something to read I will write about it. However, you may not like what I have to say.

Second, writing this blog is a hobby and comes behind a lot of other obligations. This means that the expediency of reviews may not always be considered "fast".

If you are still OK with that, then I would be happy to read the book.

Neat Idea

The folks at Road ID have come up with a novel idea. They have come up with an ID bracelet that provides your name and contact information in the event that you are unable to provide that information yourself.

Why do you need a special bracelet? Because when you are running / biking / swimming / or whatever outside most people do not carry their wallets or purses with them.

A novel marketing idea of this product would be to sell the bracelets in real time at races.

Not A Good Time To Be A Watchmaker

According to the Wall Street Journal 60% of customers entering the high-end watch boutiques are getting their watches serviced rather than buying a new watch. (1)

Ye Gods? What do you do when your sales volume is off more than half?

Notes:
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203517304574304322707126380.html

What Is Innovation?

The problem with Innovation is that it can mean different things.

To most people Innovation refers to new product development. Think iPod, wind-turbines, HDTV's. This is primarly gets written about regarding Innovation.

But Innovation sometimes means business model. Dell is a great example of this. They got a boatload of press in the 90's regarding their direct to consumer business model for selling computers.

The manufacturing guys don't call it Innovation. They call it continuous improvement, and to make it more confusing they also call it Lean. Essentially what they are doing is constantly making the process more efficient and more profitable.

Great Companies Do The Extras

There are four simple things that athletes can do to help them improve their performance that they often overlook because they are not related to the core athletic event.

They are:

1. Practice Breathing Excercises: Through practice you can increase your lung capacity and provide more oxygen to your muscles.
2. Stretch: Stretching allows greater range of motion and helps premote healing and prevent injuries.
3. Increase Core Strength: The abs and back hold everything else together.
4. Sleep: More sleep helps promote muscle recovery.

Business is exactly the same way. By working hard at their "core athletic event" companies can beat most of their competitors but they often overlook the seemingly unimportant things because they are too busy. Great companies take the time to do the extras.

They are

1. Overcommunicate: 80% of the companies cost are the result of the millions of little decisions made everyday on the front line. Communicating the needs of the business to the front line enables them to make the decisions that you want them to make. Because everyone has a diffferent frame of reference you need to comunicate the message reapeatidly and in many different ways.
2. Clean Up: A clean environment shows that you value what you are doing.
3. Increase Core System Strength: You business lives and dies by its Enterprise Resource Planning systems. These systems should be as streamlined as possible and need to be continually revisited to make sure they are reflecting changes in the organization.
4. Have Fun: People are people and will burn out over time. Doing something fun once in a while helps to re-ignite the individual fires and will help maintain organizational effectivenetss.

Yesterday's Innovation

You just don't see floor length ceramic urinals anymore.

I Really Love Wegmans

Wegmans, the Rochester, NY based grocery chain, does not do anything half-assed. Here is their tea deparment at their flag-ship store in Pittsford, NY.



And their prices are still comparable to the local Wal-Mart grocer for the staples.

Three Cheers For Double Tree

I was lucky enough to stay at the Double Tree in Greenboro, NC a couple of weeks ago. I've stayed in some nice places but nothing beat the value of this stay. (When traveling on business we don't stay at the overpriced joints. In fact this stay was on a corporate rate.)

There's a nice size sofa to compliment the king bed. Usually the hotel doesn't know what to do with the rest of the room
The bathroom was well lit, with a nice marble sink.

The included a "sweet deams" pillow. Admittedly cheesy, but still a nice touch.

Fumble proof coffee. Add the coffee thing, add water press go. No trying to jack about with filter and coffee.

Best of all a real office chair, so that you can sit comfortably at the computer and work for long periods of time. Glance back to the first picture and note how the office chair fits perfectly with the rest of the decor.

Yuck: The Economy Part II

It's starting to sink in for the rest of America.

People are starting to understand that the economy was running on consumer leverage until it got tripped up by the credit bubble (this is a fancy way of saying that people, individuals like you and me, were spending money that we didn't have) and we're aren't going to get back to where we were for a long long time.

USAToday said as much in this article. They report that household debt peaked at 133% of disposable income in 2007 vs. 65% in the mid-1980's. Furthermore, they estimate that paring back the debt requires rectifying $5 trillion over about eight years.

In other words, the consumers that were 70% of the economy, aren't going to be driving it for a long time.

What's this to do with Innovation? Now, more than ever, companies have to deliver products that solve consumer products. Consumers don't have, and won't have, as much money to spend over the next 8 to 10 years, so if you want to capture their money you really have to offer value.

Whaddaya Mean: A Review

I really like this book by Jeff Hajek.

I like this book enough to give a copy to my kids but it's not because I am anxious for them to go up to work in a factory implementing a lean program.

The book is a honest book about Lean (although it could just as well be a book about continuous improvement or any new culture movement). It admits that there are both organizational and very personal prices that have to be payed to be lean, but that they are worth it in the long run. Most books only give you the benefits of the system being sold, this book gives both sides, a rarity in business.

But better yet, the book offers advice on what you can personally do in response to a large organizational change. The book admits that life isn't fair, that your manager doesn't see things the way that you do, and it sets these things aside and helps you progress beyond the "this sucks" side of things.

I don't often recommend buying books on this blog, and that's because I don't want to be associated with a product that isn't that good.

Buy this book.

It's a great compilation of many different philosophies and strategies woven together in a succinct, easy to read manner.

Yuck: The Economy

People are starting to understand that this recession is more than just a normal cyclical depression. It's the result of fundamental overspending by both governments, business, and consumers.

Roger Altman, President Clinton's deputy secretary of the Treasury, had this to say in ysterday's Wall Street Journal.

A speedy recovery is highly unlikely given the financial conditions of American households, whose spending represents 70% of GDP. Household net worth has fallen more than 20% since its mid-2007 peak.

Everyone was hoping for a quick return to the go-go economy (Figure 1). In reality, we are going to be stuck in a malaise (Figure 2) for a while until we figure out a growth industry that can pull the economy up. (Hint, it is not housing).


We (the United States) need to figure out what the rest of the world needs and then be the best in the world at providing it. Much easier said than done: however the answer is definitely, most absolutely positively, not running up a huge debt that will weigh as anchor in the future. Have we learned nothing from the American car industry?