GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Every organization needs an Innovation champion. This very important role requires exceptional people skills and communication skills, and the ability to be a master consensus builder among all players in the organization.

Innovation champions come in a wide range of styles of interaction. Renowned psychologist Michael Kirton developed the Kirton Adaptive Innovation Inventory (KAI) as a profiling tool to measure problem-solving styles.

The general characteristics of innovators are as follows:

• Ingenious, original, independent, unconventional
• Challenges problem definition
• Does things differently
• Discovers problems and avenues for their solutions
• Manipulates problems by questioning existing assumptions
• Is a catalyst to unsettled groups, despite their consensual views

Now here are general characteristics of adaptors:

• Efficient, thorough, methodical, organized, precise, reliable
• Accepts problem definition
• Does things better
• Concerned with resolving problems versus identifying them
• Seeks solutions in tried-and-true ways
• Reduces problems by improvement and enhanced efficiency, while aiming at continuity and stability

What is your problem-solving style? Each mode has its advantages, and the most successful leaders are those who can use both styles of creative problem-solving flexibly. These characteristics mark that of an Innovation champion and an agent for change within an organization. An innovation champion can nurture a culture of sustained

Innovation in a company by taking a three-step approach.

1. Define the desired culture. Doing so will help the organization to understand what innovative behavior looks like and to bring that change to the company. Quantify the goal, such as “one new product to market per year.” Determine the champions and key players you’ll need to bring on board from all parts of the organization, including marketing, sales, finance, manufacturing, etc.

2. Establish the foundations. Devise a method to properly measure success, with leading indicators such as amount of new ideas collected, and lagging metrics such as amount of sales attributed to new products. Be sure to communicate those successes with the entire organization! Surprisingly, this practice is often forgotten – but is instrumental in building team morale and support for the innovation.

3. Engineer sustainability. This means creating regular activities with the purpose of fostering innovation. Meetings, news updates, and brainstorming sessions are all a part of the process. Develop imagery to bring the program to life such as internal innovation awards.

These are some basic steps in becoming an innovation champion and an agent for change. For more tips and a hands-on approach for creating and sustaining innovation, see Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival. Now Audiobook available as well: www.rroi.cdtdigital.com

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Turning Ideas Into Money

Innovation is an indispensable force that turns ideas into money. It is the lifeblood of any organization. In order to implement sustainable Innovation in 2012, you need to define innovation in a manner that makes strategic sense for your organization, and have the know-how to properly construct and use a process, plus the will to keep the process on course.

The task may seem daunting at first, but it’s possible to develop a disciplined strategy that delivers Innovation time and time again for sustained long-term profitability. Make developing that strategy your 2012 New Year’s Resolution. “Robert’s Rules of Innovation” outlines specific steps to implement Innovation. Here are some tips:

1. Define your organization’s needs. What type of innovation are you trying to achieve? An incremental innovation that introduces a new process or feature? Or a transformative breakthrough that completely changes the marketplace? The latter is more difficult to achieve but holds the greatest potential. Choosing the path that makes the most sense for your organization will help in the Innovation process.

2. Formulate a New Product Development process. Each organization’s NPD process can have a different number of steps, so long as they form a structured plan. A three stage plan may include: Stage 1: Product Definition where a product is examined for its brand strategy, profit potential, and competitive analysis. If the product is a “go” then it moves to Stage 2: the Qualification process where a first article product is made and tested for quality assurance. Finally, Stage 3: is Revenue where the product is launched.

3. Create a road map to success. The key elements are examining quality of projects, capability of managing them successfully, and capacity of the organization for maintaining a portfolio of well-managed projects. No matter what NPD process you decide to use, stick to the road map to ensure that each stage, and tasks within each stage, are clearly defined.

4. Some more guidelines for progress: Remember to stick to your go/no-go criteria for moving forward with developments. All projects should undergo the same scrutiny, regardless of who suggested it! Also, many organizations are incorporating a “discovery phase” into the Innovation process to allow for more experimentation. This step is beneficial for making decisions based on long-term sustainable Innovation, and not on current budget restraints alone.

In a world of increasing business competition, Innovation is key to a company’s survival. Creating an Innovation strategy that makes sense for your organization is entirely feasible, and an absolute must for creating profit for your company.

Here’s to a New Year of Innovation!

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

One of the first steps of achieving Innovation in the new product development process is to assemble a team. While the organization’s leader may be tempted to call in “the usual suspects”, people with a history of success in that field, it is important at this point to include fresh faces in the group. Dr. Harlan Weisman, chief science and technology officer of Medical Devices & Diagnostics at Johnson & Johnson suggests connecting people who wouldn’t normally work together* – people from different business groups, backgrounds, and skill sets. Creating a diverse environment of both men and women from different geographic regions, ethnic groups, age groups, and from a variety of functions will offer greater insight. This type of crowdsourcing opens the arena for new ideas within the organization.

After all, the path to Innovation is not always linear. It needs different perspectives working together to achieve the end goal. In fact, the greater the Innovation, the more necessary it is to include fresh perspectives. A team of “usual suspects”, experts in their field driven by past successes, may be able to take a product or service to the next level and create an incremental benefit. However, to create true ground-breaking “disruptive technology”, the process must start from a blank slate.

Once the assembles a team of from all levels and business backgrounds, it is key to establish trust. Only an environment that allows openness and risk-taking can produce favorable results. With the right amount of patience and shepherding, the Innovation leader can break down barriers and guide the conversation to allow for everybody’s input.

Here are some tips for the Innovation leader:

1. Trust people before they earn your precious trust; and not make your trust contingent upon proving loyalty to your ideas alone.
2. Devise a way to create a “safe haven” environment to coax the best out of the quieter members of the group; there will be those who have great ideas but will be reticent about piping up.
3. Open dialogues and collaborative relationships with local business groups, suppliers, customers, and universities.

Democratization cuts across traditional methods and produces an environment ripe for Innovation. For more tips, *see “Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.”

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Innovation is not a luxury to be placed on the back burner, but rather the lifeblood of any successful organization. Innovation builds brands, which leads to profitable growth and marketplace success. An important part of attaining that success is through creating value in the minds of customers. An example of a technological breakthrough that gained customer appeal is the Rexam Airspray mechanical foamer. Since the invention of bar soaps in the early 20^th century and liquid soaps in the 70’s, nothing else had changed in the market for decades until the foaming hand soap offered customers an efficient, easy to use, drip-free medium: true value in the eyes of consumers.

A deep understanding of your customer needs, and providing ways to fulfill those needs, is ultimately what leads to profitable growth. The most consistent path to creativity is when an innovator gathers customer data and observes problems that need fixing, according to Karen Holtzblatt of InContext Enterprises. WordPerfect was developed when designers asked for input from their primary customers, office secretaries. eBay founder Pierre Omidyar conceived the idea for an online auction house when his wife required a setting to collect and trade PEZ dispensers. Today, eBay gathers customer feedback on a regular basis in order to add new features to the site every year.

It is essential to get customer input and feedback during the New Product Development process. Consider holding ideation sessions with your customers to gain valuable insight. Take into account customer input at numerous stages throughout your NPD process. Some questions to ask your customers include what features and benefits they would like to see, such as product and service ideas, or what they would like a product to do for them to solve any particular issues. Finally, there are entirely new breakthroughs that customers cannot conceive. But once the idea for a product or service is suggested, let customers give input on a radical new concept.

According to “A Little Book of f-Laws” by Russell Ackoff and Herbert Addison, “Consumers can discover what they want in products and services by designing them. It is in design that people find what they want. Furthermore, consumer involvement in product/service design almost always gets creative results.”

The key of it all is to make sure your products and services are not developed and designed in a vacuum, or as technical solutions only, because they rarely succeed. It is all about creating and adding value in a unique solution.

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Sept 2011 Update

A new law signed by President Obama this month could mean a speedier patent approval process for inventors across the country.

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, regarded as the most sweeping patent law in 60 years, was passed on September 16, 2011. The law awards patents to the first person to submit an application, adopting the first-to-file over the first-to-invent system. The objective is to reduce lawsuits and streamline the patent process. “Somewhere in that stack of applications could be the next technological breakthrough, the next miracle drug, the next idea that will launch the next Fortune 500 Company,” said President Obama at the signing ceremony at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia.

While in the past, the patent process has been burdened with lawsuits that stifle innovation, the America Invents Act aims to streamline the patent process in order to foster innovation that will stimulate the economy and create new jobs as well as keep the U.S. competitive globally.

Glenn Henneberger, Partner at Hoffman & Baron LLP, advises that under the new law, the party who files first will be granted the rights over subsequent filers regardless of who invented first. This makes it more important to file an application as soon as possible. The first to file provisions go into effect on March 16, 2013.

“You can’t wait to file,” says Henneberger, “From the time an inventor presents his information, it may take a patent attorney two to three months to prepare, review and revise the papers. A provisional application can be filed, which would allow the inventor one year to file the non-provisional application.” The best tip for inventors? File early and definitely file a provisional application.

Other implications of the American Invents Act pertain to changes that will reduce lawsuits. In false marketing lawsuits, private parties must prove damages, which should reduce the number of patent litigations. Business method patents will be looked at more closely to reduce lawsuits as well.

The new act provides a fee reduction for “Micro Entities” – small inventors who have had less than 4 patents to their name and with incomes less than 3 times the median household income.

Finally, the America Invents Act gives third parties an opportunity to participate in the examination process. Third parties may submit information to the patent office that could affect the scope of the patent process.

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

“Successful innovation is turning ideas into money,” as Innovation expert Nic Hunt so distinctly and accurately describes. Innovation is the ability to convert ideas into value for your company, customers and shareholders. Successful innovation is not a one time deal, but a process that delivers sustained, long term profitability. Any company can develop one or two innovations over the course of time, but having a focused vision will deliver sustainable innovation – producing profitable results for your company time and time again.

Implementing innovation depends on a disciplined strategy customized to the needs, size and culture of an organization. First determine what type of innovation you hope to achieve with your organization. Innovation can be incremental, which features a new process or way of doing business, or it can be transformative, which debuts an entirely new way to deliver value. Transformative innovations are few and far in between. These true game changers open up new businesses and markets. Organizations tend to use 80% of their resources on incremental enhancements, according to a 2003 study by the London School of Business. However, be warned that companies that focus entirely on incremental innovations have difficulty keeping up with new competitors that enter the field.

Understanding what your organization needs is very important in the New Product Development process. Know your innovation status and areas for improvement by completing a short audit at www.innovationcoach.com/solutions/short-audit based on Robert’s Rules of Innovations.

Once you solidify the goals of your organization, it’s time to assemble your NPD team and begin the innovation process. Be sure to complete a few relatively easy wins with your team earlier on in the process. This will not only build equity for your  program, but also gain attention from the high-ups in the organization right away.

Each organization must create their own clearly defined stages and steps of the NPD process. Here are some tips and insights for best practices.

• Do we go/no go? Set specific criteria for ideas that should be continued or dropped. Stick to the agreed upon criteria so poor projects can be sent back to the idea-hopper early on.

• Lean, mean and scalable. During the NPD process, keep the system nimble and use flexible discretion over which activities are executed. You may want to develop multiple versions of your road map scaled to suit different types and risk levels of projects.

• The rear-view mirror review. Organizations are doing launch post-mortems, with performance metrics in place, to measure project performance, establish team accountability, and build in improvements for the future. An examination of your last innovation process can gain some valuable key learnings. Foster a culture of continuous improvement in the innovation process.

For more tips and guidelines on developing the right implementation strategy, see  Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Innovation is the lifeblood of any organization, and value creation is measured by a company’s intellectual property portfolio. As a business leader, you are responsible for protecting your company’s IP portfolio through patents. What exactly is a patent? A patent is a legal document granted by the federal government that gives the patent owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell, and importing the claimed invention. Essentially, it is the property right to the inventor. Virtually anything made by man can be patented, such as “a new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement,” according to Fleit Gibbons Gutman Bongini & Bianco PL.

Why patent, you ask? To make profit from your invention! In order to succeed in business, you must protect and manage your innovation. Remember – the wolves are always at the door, just waiting to pounce on your ideas. Patents are part of an offensive and defensive strategy. Intellectual property law keeps your competitors from copying, using, selling or importing your idea. Patents protect your trademark against counterfeiting and unauthorized use.

If your organization has a portfolio of intellectual property, it is necessary to hire an IP attorney that will protect, enforce and handle valuation of your intellectual assets. It is time and money well spent, as IP attorneys manage patents as well as a comprehensive list of intellectual property concerns including trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, unfair competition, false advertising, computer law, technology licensing and related litigation.

To choose the right IP firm for your organization, look for an attorney who has experience in your product or service arena. Find out if they have a degree in engineering or expertise working in your industry. Does the law firm specialize in any particular business segment, such as entertainment, machinery or financial products? Do they work with small, midsized or large companies? These are all questions you should address when selecting the best fit IP firm.

Here are five key tips:

1. Make sure you patent and protect surrounding inventions to eliminate alternatives to copy what you try to do or deliver. When you develop a technology you normally will come across additional options and surrounding IP, protect these as a defensive strategy
2. Make sure you stay current with the changing Patent laws, including the possible upcoming change to “first to file” vs invent and having a year to file.
3. According to Futurist David Houle we are entering the “IP age”. Make sure you are part of it
4. Make IP as much a corporate governance issue at the Board level as any other strategic elements that is covered and watched over
5. Make sure you

Here are some resources for information on patents:

• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office www.uspto.gov
• Patents.com www.Patents.com
• Google Patents www.google.com/patents
• Patently Obvious: Chapter 6 in Robert’s Rules of Innovation

Remember, in high-stakes industries, your competitors are always looking for a way to get a leg-up. With increasingly advanced technology, it is easier than ever to unravel ideas and inventions through reverse engineering. The only way to truly protect your intellectual property is by patenting your IP portfolio. As they say, “the name of the game is the claim.” Without patenting, you will not share in the profits of your competitors. Be sure to educate your employees on the importance of protecting your company’s IP rights and create value for all the stakeholders.

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

The U.S. business community is facing a war of intelligence attrition. Fortune 500s will see countless experienced knowledge workers walk out the door over the next two decades. The U.S. Armed Forces are losing millions of officers and key personnel to retirement.

For even those companies that thrive on innovation, the numbers are daunting – and demand action. Some 900,000 white collar workers from the Executive Branch of government, and another 5,400 federal executives, will be up for retirement over the next decade, according to an August 2007 study from Tandberg.

A McKinsey Quarterly survey in 2007 found that the Baby Boomer generation is “the best-educated, most highly skilled aging workforce in U.S. history.” Though they’re “only” about 40% of the workforce, they comprise more than half of all managers and almost half of all professionals, like doctors and lawyers.

Many are preparing to leave – and American leadership isn’t prepared to lose them. To paraphrase one-time presidential contender Ross Perot, that “giant sucking sound” being heard across the business landscape is the vacuum of combined knowledge locked up in the heads of millions of baby boomers heading off into retirement.

As the boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) retires, executive leadership faces a daunting task: How to ensure key intelligence and know-how doesn’t walk out the door when they retire. The loss of business intelligence and corporate knowledge, especially in R&D-focused companies or organizations, could amount to billions of dollars in lost intellectual capital. Leaders must act fast.

Even those organizations with young employees must consider knowledge management. Knowledge loss also occurs as key personnel resign or are lost to illness or tragedy, taking with them a trove of irreplaceable knowledge.

The question becomes: How do leaders keep the older generation actively engaged so that process of extracting and archiving key information is interesting, challenging and rewarding?

–       Establish and share rules of and rationales for engagement. Determine how information gathering will be accomplished – for example, by questionnaire, survey, online system, etc. Will sales people drop into the contact management system such key nuggets as a client’s admin’s name, or the client’s birthday, or his preference to be called Robert, and not Bob, thus strengthening key relationships? If so, be sure to tell the entire organization to do this – and why this is should be done.

–       Scan the personnel landscape. Create a database charting individual or shared “expertise clusters” across the organization. Use relationship software or “spiders” to track knowledge by department and employee (See exhibit example). Learn, cross-reference and document where key knowledge or competencies reside. If a key term or phrase were searched by project or product, specific individuals’ names should come up.

–       Set up a database or system for collecting information. This is especially important in larger organizations. It’s not enough to do a “knowledge dump” from one person to another. Resignation or illness could strike, leaving the company in the same situation again. Create a sustainable “Knowledge Library” system to capture key data, information and processes. Databasing solutions can be as simple as a shared Excel spread sheet, or use of enterprise collaboration platforms like Confluence (https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/), Socialtext (https://www.socialtext.com/) or TWiki (https://twiki.org/). Easy to create, update and maintain, sharing knowledge across the organization becomes a simple process.

–       Create a home for – and invite – nuanced info. At my old company, we manufactured screw-on pumps that turned liquid soap into foam. Early on, clients called about “leakers” – pumps that loosened during shipment. Our president discovered the right amount of “let off torque” to keep them in place. Because how much torque varied by bottle type, such experience-borne knowledge could not be written in customer instructions. Soon after, he took ill and left the company – but not before writing this key bit of pass-along information in a reference manual used by everyone who’s come after him.

–       Build bridges early on. Like a mentor / apprentice relationship, encourage interaction between the generations. This can foster an esprit de corps and facilitate a transfer of knowledge across ranks and age groups.

–       Host events to bring people together. Monthly breakfasts, after-work happy hour “spit & whittle” chats, and other informal exchanges can create opportunities for verbal or hands-on knowledge sharing. Hold a seminar in effective knowledge-sharing principles and practices; invite the entire organization.

–       Use social media and online tools. Create a closed group on LinkedIn, subscribe to an online whiteboard or collaborative application, create a spreadsheet or chart on Google Docs, set up a blog, forum or company intranet where retirees can return online and enter insights they recall after leaving the organization. Don’t be afraid to “crowd source” new ideas from retirees by sending eblasts or messages via group tools.

–       Make knowledge sharing a continual, perpetual habit, not a one-time act. Encourage people to document and share what they know. Invite, even incentivize retirees to return to share solutions later when they may recall something they’ve done in the past.

Remember, no tidbit is too small. It’s just not about the knowledge behind what they did. Gather details regarding the work-arounds they devised and the minutia involving their otherwise undocumented experience of things that work – and things that don’t. Even informal practices – like a workflow system that has proven effective – must be put into writing for archival and sharing purposes.

Boomers are retiring. Years of hard data and soft know-how is preparing to leave your organization. Are you prepared to avoid the vacuum?

By Robert Brands with Jeff Zbar

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Electric cars seem like the socially conscious, feel-good investment among environmentally friendly consumers. In corporate boardrooms, the innovation seemed well liked indeed.

What’s not to like? Cars like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt reportedly can drive for a day or more on a full electric charge. The Toyota Prius reduces a tank full of exhaust to the whir of a hybrid electric/ gas engine.

The numbers are astonishing. The Nissan Leaf is considered the most fuel efficient vehicle in the U.S., tallying 106 mpg on the highway, and 92 in the city. The Volt gets 95/90. The Smart fortwo electric drive gets 94/79. Compared with the 16-cylinder, eight liter Bugatti Veyron, which chugs one gallon for every eight miles, the electrics and hybrids are downright stingy.

Manufacturers are riding the hype to strong brand awareness. Nissan’s international brand appeal accelerated at 17% – more than that of any other automotive brand, notes Millward Brown Optimor-devised’s “BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands” . Analysis attributed the growth of Nissan’s brand awareness to the debut of the Leaf. After all, it had been named both European Car of the Year and World Car of the Year, both for 2011.

Turn back the leaf – or look behind the hard-to-find recharge stations – and you’ll find deeper questions about electric cars. Prices are high, charging stations remain scarce, re-charge cost is unknown, batteries are expensive to replace – and environmentally costly to dispose of.

The real question to ask: Is society being “greenwashed” into accepting electric cars? Like whitewashing, greenwashing is the process of covering up a questionable product’s failings in the cloak of environmental friendliness. Buying products made of recycled packaging; ethanol-enhanced gasoline or an electric car is a good first step toward environmentally friendly consumer practices.

Just know the whole story. Consider “range anxiety.” This new mental issue plagues owners of electric cars. Owners wonder how long their vehicles will last on a charge. In Europe, a variety of facilities have been built (or are under consideration) to charge vehicles away from home.

To that end, the availability of a charge remains a persistent challenge to full consumer acceptance. In Europe, charging stations are comparatively more easily available than in the U.S.

The key issue for any concerned consumer is: Where’s the power coming from? Most electricity in the U.S. comes from nuclear facilities or power plants that burn coal or fossil fuels. If an electric car consumes electricity from a charging station itself fueled by a power plant that uses fossil fuel, isn’t the car essentially consuming fossil fuels?

What are the “true green” alternatives for today’s electric cars? Solar panels on the roof of homes, feeding power directly to the charging station are one option? Another could be solar panels incorporated into the roof or body of the vehicle itself. Or wind powered recharging stations? We’d first need widespread use of wind farms to bring that solution to bear.

Apparently, American consumers aren’t buying it. Sales figures remain soft, leading some to surmise that these vehicles are slow to turn the corner toward broad acceptance.

More than innovation will be needed to charge life into the electric car. One only hopes that from the boardroom to the garage to the neighborhood charging station, solutions emerge that shift these vehicles into the next gear.

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GUEST POST by Robert F. Brands

Innovation advances your company towards the future – generating new products or services, boosting profits and increasing stakeholder value. To develop Innovation, the first step is to Inspire and Initiate your organization’s members. Innovation leaders need to provide the right support, both material and emotional, to stimulate new product development (NPD).

What are effective methods of inspiring innovation? For starters, keep the idea highway open to all. Good ideas can come from anywhere within your company and from any level. Communicate your innovation goals to the organization and encourage everyone’s feedback. Setting regular monthly in-person NPD meetings will ensure that the innovation process doesn’t fall off course. Hold your team members accountable for attending on time and actively participating at each meeting. Monitor progress, make new decisions and set target goals for the next meeting to steer the innovation process along.

The best way to stimulate innovation is to take team members out of their regular comfort zones. Knock down silos in the organization so that groups who don’t typically interact can form cross-functional teams. Take innovation champions from marketing, operations, finance, sales, customer service – or any other department of your company – and communicate to them simply and clearly your innovation goals and how your vision will shape the future of the company. By working with other departments, team members can see how their position fits into the organization as a whole and how they can contribute their specialized knowledge.

Innovation is the lifeblood of any organization and in order to achieve it, CEOs and management teams should lead by example. Encourage, inspire and initiate your team to be creative and to make breakthroughs. Let them dare to take risks, and accept failure along the way as a minor setback for the price of Innovation. By openly communicating and providing ample support, your team members will trust in you as a leader who wants to inspire a culture of Innovation.

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