One of the most basic and frequently observed TRIZ laws is the law of non-uniform evolution of technical system components. This law states that within any technological system, the various system components evolve along their own S-curves at non-uniform rates. This non-uniform evolution causes the development of System Conflicts. Put another way, this law predicts that systems will have areas of perfomance which are not good enough. If you follow the Clayton Cristensen line of reasoning, as outlined in the Innovator’s Solution, the companies who work on these areas and consistently advance these areas will be able to make bigger profits. So, the law of non-uniform evolution can really help you target the most profitable product areas for your business in future. Here are a couple of examples of technological systems where this law is being or has been played out. First an historical one, the evolution of the bicycle:

 

In this picture from the 1890s you can see three different formats of bicycle being used at the same time. On the left is a safety bicycle with chain drive, but solid tyres, in the centre is a lever drive bike, allowing the rider to sit further back and lower. On the right is an “Ordinary” bicycle with pedals directly driving the front wheel. Although this bicycle is the most primitive format, it has the most modern tyres – pneumatic. To get to the final format of bicycle which we recognise today, many system conflicts were overcome. A key system conflict in the “Ordinary” format was the need for increased speed against rider safety, which resulted in a very large front wheel with severe risk of injury in the event of a fall.

 

Now lets look at a current example which is getting a lot of press right now because of the rising cost of fuel and fears about global warming. The electic/hybrid vehicle: A key system conflict being played out right now in this area relates to the performance of the battery system. Right now the latest battery technology is too expensive and the infrastructure is not in place to support long journeys. As a result, many manufacturers are targeting plug-in hybrid vehicles, which require more complexity and still generate emissions and use up fuel. I’ve just read in the Sunday Times that GM is planning to bring the development of battery technology in-house which backs up the Cristensen model. Clearly, whoever manages to take battery technology forward sufficiently to break through the current system conflict will be able to generate very healthy margins.

�

I saw this article in Fast Company about P&Gs sustainability approach and I thought it illustrated a common situation – the company organises itself and thinks in one way and the consumer thinks in another way. When this happens who is right? A clue to the answer is in the P&G matra “the consumer is boss”. The article takes P&G to task over their “illegal” chemicals while covering the subject of sustainable products. For P&G, these subject areas are very different, for a typical consumer they are the same. If an “innovative”, consumer focused business like P&G has this problem in aligning it’s corporate mindset to the consumer, what’s happening for everyone else?

 

I’ve just come across the BMW GINA concept car, see this video and it made me wonder if it could be the next step on the line of increasing flexibility for the automobile body. According to the TRIZ laws of technological system evolution, you can predict potential next steps for technological system evolution. The line of increasing flexibility for any technical system starts with a “stiff” system, then moves onto a one joint system, a multi-joint system, an elastomeric system, a fluid based system and finally to a system based on a field interaction. If you refer back to my example of aircraft control surfaces, you can see many of these at play. In the case of the car body, originally the car had a rigid one-piece body. Very quickly this evolved into a segmented body with an opening to access the engine. Later further hinged sections were introduced for doors, truck, roof, windows and lights. The GINA appears to emply an elastomeric outer shell on a rigid skeletal structure. The full line of evolution can be show as follows:

�

When setting out to deliver new breakthrough product offerings to your market, I have found that a key first step is to construct a picture of your current business, market and offer. By taking stock of your current situation in a multi-dimensional way you can set an innovation context to help you target future opportunities in a more effective way.  

When I work with my clients to create market breakthrough products, because I’m often new to their business and I need to get up to speed quickly, I run through a discussion guide covering all aspects of the innovation space available to their business in future. Of course, depending on the client business I will tailor the questions to suit but the overall structure for my interview is broadly shown in this diagram:

 

My first area of focus is around Business Direction, Processes and Value Model. The key areas I probe here are:

Values, Culture and Leadership:

• What principles form the basis for behaviours within the organisation and, more specifically, what are the key criteria which provide the basis for prioritisation decisions? I will probe this area by referring to specific examples from the company’s innovation history.
• Where does the key drive for innovation come from within the organisation? For example, is innovation initiated most commonly in sales, manufacturing or R&D?
• What is the attitude to risk? Is decision making based on gaining consensus or through personal accountability?
• How engaged is senior management in innovation activity?
• What type of innovation mindset does senior management have? E.g. when they say they want a “break-though” do they really mean it?
• How does the business Mission Statement relate to this innovation challenge?

 Business Processes, Financials, Business Model and Network: 

• What product development process does the company operate?
• What processes does the company follow to build its capabilities? E.g. recruitment, research, manufacturing, commercial, marketing and sales.
• What processes does the company follow to generate revenues?
• What other partners operate in the value chain and what are their financial investment and rewards?
• Who are the key partners and suppliers?
• How is the organisation funded?
• What is the attitude to capital spending and valuation of assets? I probe around tangible assets and intangible assets (e.g. IP)

My second area of focus is the Market:

Market structure:

• Who does the client sell their product or service to?
• Who uses the product?
• What does the market landscape look like? How does the client segment their market?
• What is the geographic scope of the current market?
• Who are the other stakeholders in the success of the product or service?

Category and brand values:

• How does the client define their market category?
• What does the client think the key considerations are for this category?
• What does the client’s brand mean to consumers or customers in the category?
• Given the current brand and category, how open to new products or services might the current consumer base be?
• How are consumers and customers using the client’s product or service? What are the key consumer or customer problems that the product solves?
• What are the underlying consumer or customer insights that form the basis for the product or service?

My final area of questioning is around the current Offering and Competitors:

Technologies, performance, value and context:

• What technologies and capabilities are key to the client’s current competitive position?
• Which areas of product or service performance are currently most important to consumers and customers?
• What is the current pricing structure?
• Are there critical considerations which might limit innovation such as surrounding infrastructure and large capital investments either by the client or their partners?

 The competition: 

• Who is the main competitor?
• Which competitor has the best-in-class performance?
• Is there a key limitation which all products in the category suffer from?
• Is there any competitor IP or other prior art which might limit future innovation? 

I’ve found this discussion guide to provide a very effective foundation for innovation. Due to the broad scope of the format, it brings out a comprehensive picture of the total innovation territory. It has often sparked some very useful discussion and has even generated fresh insights for the client.

A while ago I posted an article about the three leading Open Innovation marketplaces (a.k.a. Ideagoras) but in that post, I didn’t shed much light on what the process felt like from the perspective of a Solution Provider. I’ve now submitted two proposals in answer to RFPs from Nine Sigma and eventually, after quite a bit of initial interest, I have received feedback that neither proposal is suitable for their clients. I’d like to share a bit more about these proposals with you in the hope that my learning experience might be useful if you ever decide to enter the murky and strangely disconnected world of the Solution Provider.

Proposal 1: an automotive transmission lock. I teamed up with an automotive gearbox technology company and we identified a novel transmission lock design which did not seem to be present in the prior art. I prepared a detailed patent document for the transmission lock and I filed the patent with the UK patent office within three days. I filed a patent specifically because of the policy on Nine Sigma around “non-confidential disclosure” of proposals. I prepared the proposal and the outline plan with my contact at the gearbox company and he submitted the proposal to Nine Sigma in early May. In total I put in about 4 days of work and my colleague at the gearbox company did about the same. We thought we had done a good job. Then we waited and we waited and we waited. Eventually, in the second week of July my contact received an email from Nine Sigma saying that the client thought the proposal was good but they didn’t believe that the solution was suitable for them. We didn’t get any more detail on exactly what didn’t work for the client.

Proposal 2: an improved catheter system. I analysed the problem situation using TRIZ and researched the prior art. Based on this work, I identified a conceptual solution which appeared to be novel and I tracked down a company based in Cambridge, UK with the necessary expertise to produce a proof of principle demonstrator. As in the previous proposal, I prepared a detailed patent document for the improved catheter system and filed it on-line with the UK patent office. I prepared a proposal to Nine Sigma and sent it off in early June. This time, I didn’t have to wait so long. I received confirmation from Nine Sigma in the second week of July that, following an initial screening meeting with their client, excitingly, they were interested in my proposal. My excitement soon dissipated, however, as over the next two weeks I received and answered 9 increasingly incomprehensible e-mails asking about various functional aspects of my proposal, questioning if the idea was indeed unique and implying that I hadn’t applied for a patent after all. By the time Nine Sigma said that their client thought the new technology would take too long to develop and so had decided not to proceed, I was actually quite relieved.

So, where has this left me in my burgeoning career as a Solution Provider? Actually, a little more positive than you might have thought. At least I got feedback on my proposals. I’ve spoken to others who have now given up answering RFPs from Nine Sigma because of the lack of feedback. So on my experience, there’s improvement there. In terms of the communication gap which I experienced, now I know what to expect, I’ll be ready for it next time. In fact, I’ve been looking through the list of new RFPs and I’ve already lined up another couple to have a go at. Meanwhile, if I get a good search report on Proposal 2, I think it could well have legs and it may well find its way onto yet2.com.

�

I reecently saw in a Business Week Innovation blog a post about how WL Gore & Associates have set up a “Capability Center” at its Barksdale, Delaware site in order to show off it products and technologies. The new facility was opened last year and was designed with the help of design agencies Carbone Smolan, IDEO and Homsey Architects. It’s not just intended to be used as a way to sell to clients. Gore’s own business model means that the company’s thousands of employees (Associates?) are widely dispersed around the site. According to in interview with Gene Castellano, Project Director for the Capability Center “Bill Gore had ideas about organizational dynamics and as he evolved his company, he tried to maintain a culture that fostered small teams.” As a result of this, employees focus on individual businesses and are scattered across many buildings with little sense of the overall corporation. So the facility is also used to “sell” ideas and technologies internally, helping employees to think about novel applications and combinations of Gore technologies. I’ve seen a very similar approach at 3M where the periodic table of 3M technologies is showcased in a dedicated technology and innovation section of the UK 3M head office in Bracknell. Very impressive it was to especially when combined with the traditional 10% innovation time rule at 3M. Anyway, here are a couple of shots of the new facility at Gore to give you a flavour.

I’ve recently picked up in a Strategy and Business Innovation blog called Christiansarker.com and on Business Week that the old chestnut of whizzy ways to measure how innovative you are has come up again. This time, however, rather than a complex formula being promoted by an expensive and flashy Boston-based management consultancy, the proposal has come from good old British NESTA. They claim that the usual measures of innovativeness (is that a word?) related to R&D spend and number of patents are off the mark for financial institutions and other service based businesses (of which the UK economy has a quite a lot) and want to implement a range of measures related to training, organisational change and an industry-based “peer review in which company executives both help to define the innovation indicators and rate each other”. Hmm, well I reckon we’re all pretty innovative, don’t you agree chaps? Let’s give ourselves all a five out of five on that one.

I’m probably being hopelessly simplistic and niaive, but what’s wrong with some kind of vintage measure to assess innovation - you know, % of sales from products/services launched in the last year. You might need to set up some criteria to help define the word “new” but I reckon that’s a lot better than some kind of dodgy old boys club peer review. I think output measures are most useful when you’re trying to assess your true innovation impact, after all, if it doesn’t hit the bottom line, how can it really be innovation?

At the recent FDIN conference Anneke Ammerlaan outlined a new consumer – The Cultural Creative. These consumers believe in a blend of the old and the new – old knowledge combined with the latest science and technology. They value authenticity, much as the TNS “new consumer” does, are personally demanding, value honesty and relationships and are concerned about the ecology of the world. The attitudes of these consumers are playing out in 5 trend areas:

Authenticity

The taste of honest products from honest producers. They emphasise origin and traditional production and see beauty in imperfection. They place more emphasis on the preparation method as a means of creating flavour

Health

Cultural Creatives see healthy food as real food and see the two words “Natural” and “Healthy” as very closely linked.

Care

They believe in the personal touch and a re more inclined to prepare at leaste some of their food from scratch. The belive that if they put love into their food, it will taste better and will be healthier.

Convenience

For Cultural Creatives, convenience is not just about time saving but is about simplicity and ways to deliver care with fresh, natural ingredients.

Sustainability

They look for bands and retailers they can trust and expect them to pay a fair price for a fair product. They are interested in exploring local foods and are keen to support local producers.

A must read book to learn more about Cultural Creatives is In Defence of Food by Michael Pollen.

A lot of what Anneke shared matches my experience of modern food consumers (and not just continental European ones) and gives weight to some key emerging food trends. I’ll try to get some more from Anneke over the next couple of weeks.

�

Following my earlier post from Fanborough Airshow. I now have some BBC video of the F22 Raptor in action. Watch out for the tail flaps as the plane executes some very radical moves – it’s a good illustration of what modern fly-by-wire can do.

�

Recently I asked a question on Linkedin about open innovation  options for SMEs. In, particular, I focused my question on SMEs who think they have a great technology with broad potential, perhaps in mew market areas, but are struggling to grow their sales. Here’s the question I posed:

If a small company has a great technology but a small market base, what are the best options for that company to connect with bigger markets? I’ve been writing about Open Innovation in my blog http://www.cocatalyst.com/blog and one area of the market which doesn’t seem to be as well served is SMEs seeking market growth. The scenario is something like this: I’ve got a great technology with IP protection but I can’t afford the time or cost of posting this on one of the on-line marketplaces e.g. yet2.com. What options do I have?

Greg Bautz, Owner at Sales Surge LLC, answered:

If Sales is not your core competency, then seriously consider outsourcing so you can focus your time and resources on your core company values and capabilities.
When your company wants better sales results, in the start-up phase, or ready to expand to the next level of corporate growth, you need to focus your resources and attention on your core product or service and not on developing sales processes and hiring a sales team. By outsourcing this business process, your company will move at the speed of light and leverage the core competency of the sales outsourcing to Sales Surge, we already have these systems and processes in place. As an added benefit, your company is getting the benefit of access to senior sales executives, sales consultants and sales trainers that perhaps you could not afford or justify. A real synergy begins to develop as you bring these talents together.

Anil Choudhary, Group Delivery Head, ASEAN & JAPAN at Wipro Technologies said:

 I think allaince and partnership may be best way to get bigger market base. However choosing right partner and alliance is the key and finding that may not be so easy.

One option is to leverage internet but unless you are in right place at right time, these could not give desired result quickly.

You could look at participating in some industrial seminar and conferences which you think may be interested in your product. A demo and talk on the technology and product could create interest in the group and could lead to some initial traction. You could also get your idea and product communicated through ebast to participants and that will help a lot if your demo and talk has made some people interested.

Another way could be to tie-up with some bigger player on profit and cost sharing basis for initial 2-3 years timeframe. This will not help in getting much profit initially but will ensure that effort and cost spent in getting attention and customer can be reduced to a great degree. Through this big player, once you have got to the right customer and your product / technology has become little bit familiar in the market place, you could extend it on your own. In fact chances are that this partner may become your customer or provide bettr deal for continued alliance. You must however ensure that IP remains with you.

Peter Adams, Head of Group Business Systems at High Tech Electronics Global Manufacturer advised:

Firstly, seeking parternships or entrance vehicles with companies that either have your customer OR are offering something aligned to your product. an entrance vehicle would be steve jobs saying how wonderfull your ‘do hicky’ is or Oprah or some other high profile candidate

secondly, joint venture arrangements to piggy back on another product for a split to gain market access

thirdly, a test/free version to give away to capture a backend profit ( assuming you have a backend to the entry product – and you should ! )

fourth, eMarketing to create the broader demand. ie. (directly ) Articles, whitepapers,blogs, books, audio and video, social marketing etc to drive traffic to your direct presence on the net. (indirectly ) locating all the eMarketing activity related to your prodcut and adding value that links back to you – no pitching BUT value for the consumer of that feed – those who like will come looking (existing )

fithly ) targetting specific consumers – identify your core love to have as customers Prospects and then target your marketing to win them ( see David Ogilvy or Chet Holmes for the dream 100 approach )

6th ) PR. use media placement strategies to raise the profile.

ps. if you cant find time to sell it – why on earth did you make it ?

And, finally Tim Northcutt, Director, Sales – Americas at Dow Reichhold Specialty Latex LLC said:

One of the best ways we have found to get integrated quickly into a new market is to find the primary industry conference for the market, assuming one exists and connect there. Either attend the annual meeting to identify key industry players for partnership, or use the event organization to conduct an eblast introduction of your technology. The choice depends on your strategic intentions whether to choose a small development partnership versus a broad market approach. The small partnership approach requires diligence on IP ownership. Experience has suggested that development partners tend to over estimate their contributions if not clearly defined as the process unfolds. Both methods have generated positive results. If a large enough audience can be gathered, we have had success with introductory webinar events coordinated through an industry organization. Alternatively we have had success in hiring a credible, usually retired, industry executive who can immediately provide us with access to the highest levels of targeted customers. This contract employee gives us immediate credibility and access to key decision makers. Compensation is done on an hourly basis for consulting fees.
Either way, the key is quick and credible access to the right people at the right potential partner at reasonable cost. Best of luck!

So to summarise this advice, key strategies to get your technology more widely known are:

• Clarify the market area you wish to target
• Identify and attend primary industry conferences for your target market. Alternatively, link up with the organisers and get them help you promote your technology
• Partner with key players in that market, i.e. who either already deal with your target customer or offer something parallel/complementary. If these are development partners, be careful to protect your IP
• Target your prime customers and aim your promotional material at them, consider running introductory webinars or hire a credible, usually retired, indutry executive to help
• Get some sales help from people who already have the skills 

 �