Archive for Interesting links
Team culture
I came across a Harvard Business Review article this week about how large corporations can better foster innovation by helping their dedicated innovation team members partner with other performance and core process teams, rather than struggle with conflict. (Culture is one of the key ingredients of a healthy company of any size!)
I was drawn to a particular example in my own back yard of how GE Healthcare’s R&D center in Milwaukee helped its innovation team in India innovate a portable ECG machine last year.
Innovation teams in your core business can optimize knowledge as long as your leaders inspire that culture throughout the organization. It can be accomplished by articulating and motivating a vision of victory, communicating that your teams are mutually dependent on each other for success, and by creating a common enemy: the competition!
There are ten tips in total. Check them out!
Are you an authentic leader?
As we’re seeing in the job placement industry, finding and keeping top-notch employees takes far more than the promise of a nice paycheck even in a down economy. (Don’t take my word for it; this video is a must-see for anyone looking to retain talented workers.)
If you want to create a strategy around hiring people who mesh with your organization’s culture and values, keep it real and keep it clear.
How your people come to know your culture and values depends on your authenticity–the way that you communicate. If you are a leader with any role in retaining employees, you absolutely must be able to clearly articulate a your company’s culture, business strategy and goals not only to your people but to your shareholders and the marketplace. (I’ve got more to say on this here.)
We all need employees who have the energy, passion and creativity to bring innovative new ideas to the table. And what they need to keep that spark going is authentic leadership from you. Have you created an environment that inspires or detracts from innovation? Are you providing ample and exciting opportunities to be a part of the team?
Employees will continually weigh and consider these elements along with the monetary and psychological rewards.
Friday Fun: What Motivates You?
If you haven’t seen this yet, take a look. This is a great example of how to inspire your people to be more innovative by helping them work in their “sweet spot.”
Enjoy!
No need for an outlet with this battery charger
When an earthquake shook Haiti’s capital Port au Prince in January, communicating by cell phone was impossible. The cell towers high in the hills of the capital city that covered most of the island nation became inoperable. But a new palm-sized fuel cell that turns water into electricity might be a game changer in developing nations and disaster areas.
About a billion people in emerging countries have cell coverage, and those people could communicate via mobile phone very inexpensively in the near future—without the need for electricity.
A new device called the H3 charger is promising on-the-go charging even when you are away from a wall outlet. You can read about the H3 here and here.
Innovators at Stockholm-based myFC, came up with the H3 charger, which relies on portable fuel cells. I checked out their web site, and was impressed to learn the company was awarded as one of the top ten fastest growing clean tech companies in Europe at the Cleantech Connect Awards in November. (Cleantech Connect brings together Europe’s’ leaders in the clean and green technology space, recognizing growth and innovation in the sector.)
The H3 charger is nearing commercial release in Scandinavia this year and will eventually make its way to the U.S. next year. The price tag is around $40 to $50, and is about the size of a sandwich.
So if you are planning a wilderness trek next year, you’ll need some water, the charger and a few small tea bag-sized fuel packets containing hydrogen fuel. Then simply pour water into the reaction chamber, add the packet and wait for the chemical reaction between the water and the fuel pellets.
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.”
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!