'Stumbling upon the next great invention in an “ah-ha!” moment is a myth'

Article by the inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner, explaining the 1 % inspiration, 99 % transpiration than comes along with the process of innovating.

R&D is not innovation

Somehow, you would expect that people would understand the difference between R&D and innovation. Unfortunately these terms have been used so often together that people started to believe that innovation is the consequence of R&D. Although there might sometimes be a link between the two (just as there is a link between number of smart employees and innovation and many other factors), does not mean you can equal these terms.

http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2011/01/17/nederland-internationaal-in-achterhoede-met-rd/

What the statistics in the (Dutch) article actually say is that Finland, Japan and Sweden spent a lot of money on R&D. It does not say what the outcome of this spending is. As Swedish experts in innovation from INNOVA have indicated themselves is that all this high spending on R&D has not lead to economic growth or an increase of number of jobs. Probably it just indicates the importance of R&D intensive industries like automotive and ICT for these three top countries. These industries use heavy investments in R&D to innovate on their hardware and processes. Other industries innovate using another strategies that don't consist of heavy R&D spending.

Slideshow about Steve Jobs & Innovation

7 Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs

View more presentations from Carmine Gallo.

[Book review] 'Purple Cow' & 'Free prize inside'

The two books 'Purple Cow' and 'Free prize inside' by Seth Godin deals about marketing. The underlying presumption of both books is that the traditional way of marketing was based on the old TV-industrial complex. New products and services were created for the masses and then marketed on TV to the masses in order to increase sales and profits. In modern days, consumers stopped listening. Of course this is also because of the increase in number of channels on TV and other media (internet) people spent time on, but it is also a new consumer who actually decides on whether he wants or does not want to listen. The second presumption is that most of people's needs are satisfied, so products and services have to cater to what people want, not what they need. Other people might call this to create a market need/demand.

To overcome this problem, there is only one solution according to Seth Godin: be remarkable. It takes new and innovative products and services to be noticed by people. To be noticed means being worth talking about, which leads to more sales. But the only way this happens if the product/service is remarkable. And what is remarkable today, might be common and boring tomorrow, so to continue having remarkable products and services means to innovate.

Seth Godin suggests marketing companies to stop making remarkable advertisements, but ask their clients if they can be involved in the very design of their products and services, just like the type of companies I talked about in my previous blog post.

When talking about innovation, Seth Godin notes that although most people think about advancement in science and technology, this strategy is risky and expensive. What is cheap (free prize) in contrast is the design of 'soft innovation'. The strategy is to make your product/service remarkable not through new technology but 'to go to the edge'. Do something else than others do and make it remarkable: be cheaper, or more exclusive, or put extra packaging, or remove all packaging, be open 24/7 or be open only on Tuesdays afternoon, etc.

Furthermore he notes (like others have noted) that the only thing that all innovators have in common is that they have nothing in common. They are unique in their sector and doing something remarkable that no one has done before. And to follow them means to be a follower: not innovative and not remarkable. So his message is: be remarkable.

During the Ford industrial complex, blue collar workers were expected to do as they where told. White collar workers nowadays have on the other hand to come up with new ideas and do things different, since they have to work with their minds and cannot be instructed what to do. Therefore it is your job to be remarkable. 'Free prize inside' discusses different strategies and methods for how to be remarkable.

New services arise

Over the last decade, I have seen the birth and growth of a completely new industry sector that hardly existed before. A new service firm that takes (partly) over the responsibility from their client for the organisation of their eco-system and their innovation process. Traditionally there are consultants who will tell you what you should do, what choices to make and how to adapt your strategy. Sometimes this was followed by an interim-manager who would execute this new strategy, mostly in times of crises. The new type of service firm not only suggests new strategies, it also partners in the implementation of the new strategy by taking over share and part in the design and execution of the innovation strategy. Sometimes this include conducting applied research together, developing prototypes and doing the market-introduction together. In other cases it is limited to the finding, selecting and linking to new global partners to include in the new innovation eco-system. This last service is not the generic match-making services as run by many private and public bodies but includes a very specific in-depth knowledge of a typical sector/technology to be able to find and link to partners that can offer true value added.

Both of these services existed only very limited before and probably only available and affordable for large firms. Nowadays with new innovative methods for sharing costs and profits these new services are available for all companies. It will be interesting to see where this development will go in the future...