An introductory workshop on innovation delivered on May 19 2103 to Bedaya Center, Doha, Qatar. The objective was to explore the understanding of innovation using stories, examples and interactive exercises. The workshop was a great success and received excellent reviews filled by the attendees.
10. Example The Story of the Zipper
• Elias Howe Patent for “Automatic
Continuous Clothing Closure”
• Focused on sewing machine invention
1851
• Sundbäck received patent for "Separable
Fastener” & manufactured at UFC
• B. F. Goodrich Company used it on its
rubber boots & tobacco pouches
• Renamed the device “Zipper”
1917
• Defeated the “button” for
promoting self-reliance for
children & ease of use
• Zipper started being used in
clothes & fashion
1937
• Became a standard in clothing,
luggage & leather goods
• Most recent innovation of
zippers opens from both ends
Today
• Judson invented “Clasp Lockers”
• Walker, a business man helped him build “Universal Fastener
Company” (UFC) & Judson improves design to “C-curity”
1893
23. INNOVATE the PIZZA!
Product
Business Model
Value
Market
Services
Process
Innovate your pizza business using any form(s) of innovation
How it generates
revenue?
What’s the idea &
form(s) of innovation?
What value is added
to customer?
1 2 3
DELIVERABLES:
36. INNOVATION
Rejection Adoption
• Fear of trying new things
• Costly to change
• Politics
• Time (20+ years)
• Early Adopters
• Solves their problem
• Majority of Users
• Proven to work
People naturally resist change
Pictures to help us think about the meaning of innovation
Words we associate with innovation
My favourite definition of innovation, according to Innovation Network, USA
How is innovation different than invention
Invention is creating something new usually in the form of product or service. Innovation is placing that product or service in a new context to create value. Your gift must reach the right customers to add value and solve a problem that they are willing to pay for.
Analogy to look at invention, innovation and entrepreneurship. All are interconnected and difficult to define where they start and end. Yet, the stone wheel is invented but has no specific purpose. The automobile is a result of many innovations utilizing the wheel invention and others to produce a solution for transporting from point A to point B, creating value for a customer. Entrepreneurship encompasses everything needed to start a business that manufactures the automobile, marketing, sales and dealing with regulations, policies, employees…etc.
The zipper story shows a realistic view of how innovation happens as it bounces from patents, forming a business, R & D, finding right customer, marketing and all the way until it becomes accepted as a standard in the market. It took over 160 years for something as simple as the zipper to be adopted!http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa082497.htm
Product innovation offers new features to offer key benefits to users (i.e. tablets, phone, cars…etc)Process innovation is a unique method to do something useful (i.e. chemical formula, manufacturing process, Amazon’s patented 1 click purchase)Service innovation is offer a unique service to customers (i.e. iTunes music download for only 99 cents)Business model innovation is changing the building blocks of how to create, deliver and capture value. (i.e. models for selling ink and printers)Value innovation is offering a new value to customers. (i.e. convenience of do it your self pregnancy test, self-reliance of children clothing with zippers)Market innovation is creating a new market. (i.e. Nintendo Wii changed the gaming industry by focusing on interactive family games rather than competing head to head with Sony and Microsoft’s high quality graphics games)
Clayton Christenson, a leader in innovation from Harvard talks about the concept of disruptive innovation in his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”.Technology is the product or service you’re offering and the market is the group of customers using it.Incremental innovation is minor improvements using same technology in the same market. (i.e. 8gb, 16gb, 32gb flash drives)Disruptive (new tech) is using new technology to solve same problem for the same customers (i.e. LCD monitors replace CRT with major advantages)Disruptive (new market) is using existing tech but in a new way creating a new market. (i.e. Skype improved VOIP until it dominated online calling and created a new market)Breakthrough innovation is a new market and new technology which is rare. (i.e. personal computer and the internet)
Many companies aware of the importance of innovation are encouraging employee engagement to unleash creativity. Google gives its employees 20% of weekly work hours to work on independent projects in which many resulted in new Google products.
World wide trend if increasing incubators, accelerators and innovation centres to provide the best environment to drive innovation
Attendees assemble in teams representing a pizza business. They will innovate their business to add new value to their customers while increasing their revenue. Each team must focus on the forms of innovation they want (suggest 1 or 2), explain their idea and how it adds value to customer or solve their problem and finally how this will translate into more revenue to the business.
Some examples of pizza innovation in products, service, process (cutting) and other unique ideas.
The fantasy that if you’re at the right time and the right place you may invent something … a moment of genius!
In 1958, Norm Larsen successfully created a formula to stop corrosion using water displacement in his 40th attempt. A good example of a product that reveals the hard work and trial and error behind innovation.
The fantasy of one inventor, one hero credited for everything!
We disregard previous inventions that inspire new ones as well as other people’s work that contributed to the inventions we have today.
Easy steps for innovation that changes your ideas into cash!
Innovation is experimental in nature, not an engineering methodological process to solve a problem.
Alfred Nobel wanted to make Nitroglycerin more stable and safer in mine explosions, so he improved it to create dynamite.
Nobel’s invention was used for wars despite his good intentions.
Galileofaced persecution by the church from claiming that the sun was the centre of the universe instead of earth.
People may seem to love ideas but they don’t adopt them and often reject them for many reasons. Few will who we call early adopters.