Going to the Olympics? Get your carbon credits!
With about a week to go before the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, it’s interesting to note that there is a green effort underway to make these events more environmentally friendly. Twenty-five partners are heading an ambitious effort to leave a legacy of carbon neutral Games by doing things like offsetting air travel for Olympians.
Those games are projected to put about 268,000 toes of carbon emissions (118,000 tons from direct emissions and 150,000 from indirect emissions), resulting from Olympic travel by participants and spectators. (These projections come from the Center for Sustainability and Social Innovation at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business.)
Corporate sponsors, governments and broadcasters are volunteering to offset some of their own carbon emissions by investing in a portfolio of British Columbia clean energy technology projects, as well as international Gold Standard offset projects. It’s called the 2010 Legacy Portfolio.
What’s more, even the Olympic Torch Relay presenting partners Coca-Cola and RBC have joined the partners in offsetting all their emissions arising from the long journey across Canada.
And if you happen to be headed for Vancouver and want to join in this green movement, you can go carbon neutral by offsetting emissions from your travel to and from the games by clicking www.offsetters.ca to calculate your carbon footprint and purchase carbon credits immediately online.
Prize4Life Illustrates Collaborative Innovation at Its Best in the Quest to Cure ALS
In Conquering Innovation Fatigue, we emphasize that many innovators are motivated by the desire to make a difference in the world rather than merely obtain personal profit. We also discuss the concept of innovation competitions as a great way to fuel innovation success and access new talent. We also emphasize the importance of collaboration across disciplines and organizational boundaries as the future of innovation success. All these concepts are nicely illustrated by an organization seeking to cure ALS, Lou Gherig’s disease. Prize4Life, Inc. (Prize4Life.org) makes an interesting case study of what can be achieved in the realm of altruistic innovation using collaborative models and innovation competitions.
Meghan Kallman, Marketing & Communications Manager of Prize4Life, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, kindly shared some information with me about their inspiring innovation efforts. Here is the information she provided:
I would like to share with you the case of Avichai Kremer, co-founder and CEO of Prize4Life, Inc. Then a student at Harvard Business School, Kremer discovered in 2004 that he had ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease).
A computer-science engineer and ex-captain in the Israeli army, he had planned to graduate, work as a manager in a hi-tech company, and raise a family. Those plans changed drastically when he was told he would have 2-5 years to live, and that the medical establishment could do nothing for him. Kremer’s business perspective sparked his interest in the economics of ALS therapies, and inspired him to use his Harvard training to work for a cure.
Little is known about what causes ALS and only a few companies develop ALS drugs, so Kremer and two of his Harvard colleagues queried scientists and industry executives about the gaps that have prevented researchers from finding a cure. Companies said that they needed some basic research tools to reduce the cost of the development, like a biomarker – a better way to track disease progression. So Kremer and his classmates began Prize4Life, Inc., a non-profit organization employing business theories to stimulate research, which announced in 2006 that they would give $1 million to anyone who could come up with such a biomarker. The ALS Biomarker Prize program recently awarded $100,000 in progress prizes, and the organization’s second prize, the Avi Kremer ALS Treatment Prize, hits its one-year anniversary in October 2009.
While prizes are the visible core of our results-oriented model, we are also conscious of the need to create a vibrant and supportive arena in which our participating teams can effectively compete. Prize4Life has thus created a series of innovative projects and partnerships, piggybacking on its groundbreaking prize model, to ensure that all competing teams equal opportunity to be successful.
As one example of such partnership: in June 2009, Prize4Life and the Alzheimer Research Forum announced the launch of a new ALS-focused internet portal known as the ALS Forum (http://www.researchALS.org). Initial reaction to the new web portal has been swift and positive. The site offers ALS researchers around the world a one-stop access point for cutting edge research news and unique web-based resources. We also have designed and developed a manual to help researchers design their animal trials, and are currently designing and developing a database of genes associated with ALS that we intend to make available to researchers.
About Prize4Life
Prize4Life was founded by a group of Harvard Business School students when one of them, Avi Kremer, was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 29. Prize4Life works to accelerate the discovery of a treatment and a cure for ALS by using powerful incentives to attract new people and ideas, and to leverage existing efforts and expertise in the ALS field. Among other program initiatives, the organization currently administers the ALS Biomarker Prize Challenge, the Avi Kremer ALS Treatment Prize, and the ALS Forum.THE NEXT ALS BREAKTHROUGH COULD BE YOURS
Meghan also shared with me an example of a successful outreach effort using the competition model. “We actually awarded $50,000 to a dermatologist who had never studied ALS before, and who was intrigued by the prize model, and who submitted a winning entry, which is a testament to the potential of the prize model itself.” For the complete press release with much additional information, see the press release, “Prize4Life Awards Prizes for ALS Biomarker Challenge to InnoCentive Solvers: Extends $1Million Challenge Seeking ALS Biomarker” (PDF).
Further examples of great collaboration can be seen in their press release, “Prize4Life and The Jackson Laboratory partner in fight against ALS
Non-profits join forces to provide researchers with new preclinical resources” (PDF). This describes a partnership with The Jackson Laboratory (JAX®), the world’s leading provider of mouse models, to provide preclinical resources for ALS research. Together, Prize4Life and JAX® have prepared a comprehensive training manual to enable researchers to more effectively use the SOD1 mouse model in the fight against ALS.
Their website is http://www.prize4life.org.
Want to Help?
If you would like to help, Meghan told me that there are many opportunities. “We always need donations and fundraisers (this is the link), but we also have folks who host events for us, who blog on our behalf (on their blogs or on ours), who reach out to scientists who may want to compete for our prizes, to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, to link to us on their sites, the list goes on! We have an exciting event coming up here in Boston, for those who are local–Boston’s pro lacrosse team will be featuring us at ‘Heroes Awareness Night’ at the Boston TD Garden on February 6, and donating a percentage of the proceeds to our efforts. If anyone is on the east coast and wants to attend, they should click here:http://bit.ly/512shV. Anyone interested can contact me directly, mkallman at prize4life dot org.
A great example of collaborative innovation in action, with bonus points for using innovation competitions and having altruistic goals. ALS is a terrible disease and needs more attention in the quest for cure.
Cool technology fuels our hunger for on-demand information
Last month I wrote about some of the technology that was on display at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show and the trends for the future. With the dawning of the new decade it is interesting to see how far technology has come since the last one. When we are living it, we don’t always realize how dramatically our habits are changing, but looking back we can see how far we have come.
The personal computer and the Internet were the defining technology the 90’s, but there is a collection of devices and technologies that have defined the decade of the 2000’s. These technologies had a common theme: on-demand information and entertainment.
Broadband technology was born out of necessity to deliver the rich internet content that was emerging to quench a new entertainment and information appetite. The internet text and images of the 90’s expanded into audio and video content. A dial-up modem connection was not longer sufficient for the masses. If you wanted to watch a video, play a game online, or download music you needed speed. Broadband internet provided that speed and became a necessity.
At the same time, the explosion of online information led to the requirement for fast, efficient search engines to find it. If you couldn’t find what you were looking for, then it didn’t matter whether it was available or not.
The early Alta Vista of the 90’s led to the powerful Google of the 2000’s. I don’t think there is any argument that there is still plenty of room for improvement in these tools and they will continue to evolve. As essential as a search engine is for our everyday online life, a search for information is still far too often an exercise in a separation of the wheat from the chaff.
Along the lines of entertainment, a slew of products came of age in the 2000’s including: the DVD that replaced the VHS tape; the DVR (digital video recorder) that is revolutionizing the way (and when) we watch TV; the iPod and other MP3 audio players that took the place of the Walkman; and of course HDTV and the big screen.
Before my family goes on a trip we frequently go to Google Maps and familiarize ourselves with the route, even to the point of being able to preview parts of our trip with a visual street view of our destination or route. Once we are on the road, we no longer need a glove box full of maps to navigate, as many of us now depend upon our now commonplace GPS devices.
The list of influential developments of the last decade would not be complete without mentioning the evolution of cell phones into small computers that provide not just voice, but email, text and photo and even video recording capabilities. Information can be captured and communicated now wherever we may be. Networking sites MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook (from 0 to over 300 million users) and Twitter keep us in touch and updated with each other like never before.
This is just a small sampling of the visionary technology from the 2000’s that we have come to enjoy, and frequently rely on, for our everyday lives. I can’t wait to see what amazing developments the 2010’s will bring!
Inventables delivers inspiration and innovation to the dreamers of the world!
I am thrilled to see that TECHCRUNCH.COM is featuring the innovative company of my friend and partner Zach Kaplan. Zach’s Chicago-based company, Inventables, inspires thousands of designers in their companies (such as Proctor & Gamble, Motorola, and Black & Decker), to be innovative. Check out the artlicle here!
So what is Inventables and why are so many designers and engineers excited about this company? Inventables is a no-frills website that was launched this month where vendors of raw materials and technologies can create online profiles for their products in order to generate qualified sales leads worth their time. Inventables makes it very easy for vendors of materials and technologies to get an initial introduction to potential buyers.
Microsoft X-Box, PING Golf Clubs, and Kraft Foods are examples of buyer companies using the marketplace. Dupont, 3M, and Eastman are examples of companies participating as vendors.
I’ve been serving as an advisor to Inventables, and couldn’t be more pleased and excited for its future.
Says Zach:
“We founded Inventables to help companies innovate by sharing our excitement for what technology makes possible with the world’s innovators. We’ve opened up our once proprietary research for free to the world so that information and access to new materials that was once only available to the largest companies in the world is now available to anyone with an internet connection.”
Will 3-D be in your living room this year?
We like gadgets at our house, and I am amazed at what I saw last week at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, the premier event for the presentation of the industry’s latest electronic products.
Without a doubt I have to say that the event was the coming-out party for consumer three-dimensional (3-D) display technology. 3-D devices were on display in whatever area you looked at the show- televisions, video players, cameras, gaming and even broadcasting. The results were impressive! It is no longer just a curiosity. 3-D technology has been around for quite a long time, but along with the advancement of higher resolution displays, it has obviously been the focus of many electronics companies’ recent R&D efforts.
We are all familiar with older versions of 3-D video and movies that use different colored paper glasses, but the newest techniques when combined with modern high-definition displays were incredibly realistic. The next step up from colored red-and-blue glasses has been dark polarized lenses that can separate the two images necessary for the 3-D depth effect. This is the technique used in the popular and very successful Avatar movie.
On display at the CES show were televisions using “active” glasses where the video seen through each lens is electronically “shuttered” on and off in sync with the display images so that each eye sees a different image appropriate for that eye’s viewing angle. This gives an even more realistic, bright and colorful display. The first live DirecTV 3-D broadcast was demonstrated with the Panasonic TC-P50V25 using this technology and it felt like you right there underwater swimming with the dolphins or soaring over the Grand Canyon.
Intel also demonstrated a very interesting monitor that could present three-dimensional images where the viewer didn’t have to use any type of glasses at all. It was mesmerizing to watch. The technology that was used here is called “lenticular” and is similar in principle to the flip-flop pictures our parents (and us!) used to get out of Cracker Jack boxes as a kid. This is a principle that has been around since the late 1800’s and has been reapplied to 21st century needs.
To me it is amazing that for as long as it took to get HD television into our living rooms, the electronics manufacturers have unveiled three-dimensional video displays surprisingly fast. However to make the hardware sing it needs content. Fear not, the broadcasters are joining the party.Just a few weeks ago it was announced that ESPN and the Discovery Channel are entering the third dimension now. ESPN 3-D and will broadcast over 85 sporting events in 3-D this year.
I’m not sure I relish the idea of replacing recently purchased HD television sets so quickly, but much like the adoption of HD, once you see it you can immediately appreciate the benefits. 2010 will be the turning point in 3-D television and entertainment. Like it or not – it is coming, and coming soon.
Who’s Mining the Shop? The Need to Mine Inventions in Companies, Universities
“Who’s mining the shop?” This is a question that needs to be asked for every university, company, and organization capable of creating inventions. In my corporate and academic experience (am the former Corporate Patent Strategist at Kimberly-Clark Corp., and was a professor before that), numerous inventions never get the protection they deserve because nobody was there to coach the inventors, to recognize the potential for intellectual property, and to do the extra work required to develop a sound IP strategy for the work. Many inventors know almost nothing about intellectual property. Many don’t even recognize that what they have developed is an invention. This can be especially true in businesses when the invention is developed outside of a normal R&D department, such as a new business method or software tool. But even research scientists and professors may miss the patent potential of their work unless there is someone there to coach and guide them.
Technology transfer offices are charged with this task in many universities, and legal departments or patent review boards have this duty in many companies, but both can miss huge opportunities unless there is someone who goes out to mine the organization for inventions. That involves reaching out to groups and individuals, educating them (often in presentations or group meetings) about intellectual property, being available for one-on-one discussions, asking questions, looking for signs of exciting developments, being an advocate and mentor, and constantly mining for IP gold. These are activities that we at Innovationedge have done for some of our clients, with exciting results. Let us help you develop a plan to capture more of the inventions that are in your midst, and to generate new intellectual assets (including low-cost assets) to build a powerful portfolio.
One of the many exciting experiences I had at Kimberly-Clark came after recognizing that a particular remote mill had developed some clever solutions to a few problems they were facing. After further inquiries, I learned that the mill had some very bright engineers who were solving lots of problems in clever ways. I suggested that there may be some patent opportunities coming out of that mill, and arranged a trip where a couple of us would spend a couple days there giving presentations and doing interviews of team members to see what they might have. I found many exciting and potentially patentable advances from their work, and ended up working with them to generate nearly a dozen invention disclosures, several of which were filed as patents. This created a lot of excitement for the mill and helped them pay more attention to the IP potential of what they were doing.
As with that mill experience, part of successful mining involves helping people write up the initial invention disclosure. When people are very busy and writing disclosures doesn’t fit their job description, someone needs to be the assistant/mentor who basically writes it for them, taking away the pain of the IP process. It requires resources, but it can lead to substantial returns.
We would be happy to work with you to examine your organization and determine what you could achieve by applying some additional resources to help generate IP through proactive mining. Mining and generating intellectual assets for clients are among our favorite services that we offer. We consider it an important step toward overcoming innovation fatigue in some organizations.
Who’s mining the shop? Great question. Give us a call today and let us help you strengthen your mining efforts.
25 innovative companies by patent ranking
Not too long ago Businessweek published a list of the 25 most innovative companies in the world. Check out the slideshow to see who made the list. This particular ranking was compiled by Ocean Tomo an intellectual-property consulting firm. The firm sorted through U.S. patents granted to the world’s 1,000 biggest companies in the past four years. Ocean Tomo then assessed the patents’ value by tallying, among other things, patent filing trends, litigation rates, and how many times each was cited by other applicants or in scientific and technical journals.
Who are the best open innovation speakers globally?
It is nice to make a list like this! NESTA is an innovation company from the U.K. that works with high tech startups.
Smart Signs and Smart Innovation: Are You Preparing Now? Let Us Help
One of the most exciting opportunity areas for targeted innovation is in the display of digital information.
The information-rich world of the film Minority Report is becoming closer to reality each day, with some practical twists. Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that Intel and Microsoft are teaming up to provide smart digital displays in retail stores that can look back at the viewer, identify gender and other information using cameras and image processing, and then automatically offer information about products that may be of interest to the viewer, including instant coupons, directions to the product in the store, etc. The article, “Intel, Microsoft Offer Smart-Sign technology” by Don Clark and Nick Wingfield (p. B6, Jan. 12, 2010), describes smart-signs as a way for retailers to fight back against online sellers. The technology builds upon the embedded computing capabilities that Microsoft and Intel have applied to point-of-sale systems, office equipment, car entertainment, and other systems. They are now collaborating to specify hardware and software components that could become a standard platform for other developers. They will seek to offer features similar to those provided by Amazon.com, which can identify returning customers and tailor promotions to them based on their history. It’s all about personalizing the shopping experience–but doing that without infringing upon consumer privacy may be a complex issue. A spokesman stated that the current technology does not identify individuals, only gender. Perhaps the future may involve an opt-in system for those who want to be identified and receive discounts or other benefits in return.
Meanwhile, a variety of companies are developing flexible thin-film displays. One interesting technology space is electronic paper, which reflects light like ordinary printed paper to create images or text. Rigid versions of electronic paper are in use in some popular portable readers, while flexible versions are being developed by companies like E-Ink. A variety of technologies that have been used for electronic paper are summarized at Wikipedia, including electrophoresis, electrowetting, and electrofluidic displays.
What could your business model do with flexible smart displays, if they become inexpensive and easy to program or control? What could you do by adding sensors (perhaps sensors that respond to pressure, temperature, or capacitance to detect touch, or micro-electronic devices such as accelerometers or level indicators)? If you could track and interpret the actions a customer takes with a smart tag, for example, could that help you? What could you do if your smart tags or smart panels could communicate with each other and a network?
Will flexible displays become integrated with smart-sign technology to provide, say, magazines that can read you?
There is a growing body of publications and patents addressing creative aspects of what can be done with these emerging technologies. What will it mean for you–or for your competitors? What will these technologies mean for your supply chain? What do they mean for packaging, for shelf management, for inventor management, for market research, or for product safety? Are you aware of the future and how it might impact the business? At Innovationedge, we’re ready to work with you to find these answers for your company and to generate the intellectual assets that you will need to be prepared for a smarter, information-rich future. We’re ready to help you develop strategies and tools to reduce the impact of competitive disruptive innovation, while increasing your own opportunities to create intellectual assets and benefit from the emerging capabilities of the future.
In fact, there is one other very cool technology from Asia that you ought to be thinking about when you start exploring a world with smart, flexible display technology. If that doesn’t ring a bell, maybe you should give us a ring and let us show you how to do targeted innovation to help you go beyond mere brainstorming by generating the intellectual assets you need for the future. We tailor our approaches to each client, but in this case, we are likely to apply some of the insights from our recent book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Overcoming the Barriers to Personal and Corporate Success, a John Wiley & Sons book by Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins, and Mukund Karanjikar. Call us at 920-967-0470.
May your innovations be flexible and smart!
Customer Service: Building a sustainable advantage
If you are a small business owner, this new year is a great time to take stock in how your company is doing. Do you have a plan for creating more value and exceeding customer’s expectations?
This year a big marketing buzzword to watch is “customer service.” Offering outstanding customer service doesn’t just make good economic sense for your small business. It is the only truly sustainable competitive advantage, according to Barry Moltz, who recently wrote an article about The 10 Customer Service Trends for 2010.
Some trends I highlighted from his list include personalized shopping experiences, “insourcing” and tighter relationships. Then there is the one about firing your customers! Browse the list and ask yourself if these are hitting the mark in your company this year.