Category Archives: Innovation

Top 10 American Innovations of All Time

A Fourth of July Celebration

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

As we gather to celebrate the Fourth of July, our nation’s Independence Day, we not only rejoice in the freedoms and values that define America but also reflect on the incredible ingenuity that has propelled our country forward. From the light bulb to the Internet, American innovations have played a key role in shaping the modern world. In honor of this patriotic occasion, let’s take a moment to celebrate the Top 10 American Innovations of All Time — milestones that exemplify the pioneering spirit and relentless pursuit of progress that define our great nation.

1. The Internet

Arguably the most transformative innovation of the 20th century, the Internet was born out of American ingenuity during the late 1960s under projects like ARPANET. It has revolutionized communication, commerce, entertainment, and access to information. It is the backbone of the digital age, making our world more connected than ever before. As we celebrate our independence, it’s particularly fitting to honor the Internet, a creation that has democratized information and connectivity globally. The Internet has transformed how we communicate, learn, and do business. It’s a tool that fosters freedom of expression and connects us all, embodying the spirit of liberty we cherish.

2. The Light Bulb

When Thomas Edison perfected the incandescent light bulb in 1879, it marked a new era in human history. The ability to illuminate spaces effectively and efficiently extended the day’s productivity, paving the way for the modern lifestyle and countless subsequent innovations. Much like the fireworks that light up our skies on the Fourth of July, Edison’s innovation illuminated the path to a new era of progress and possibility.

3. The Airplane

The Wright brothers’ first successful flight in 1903 epitomizes American daring and inventiveness, with the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered aircraft. Their breakthrough not only shrank the world in terms of travel time but also laid the foundation for an entire industry that employs millions and generates trillions of dollars globally. Their achievement made the skies accessible, bringing people closer together and making global travel a reality. Just as the Fourth of July celebrates freedom of movement and the pursuit of happiness, the airplane opened new horizons for all.

4. Personal Computer

While computing concepts had been around for years, it was American pioneers like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who brought the personal computer into homes and offices worldwide. The launch of the Apple Macintosh and the widespread adoption of Microsoft Windows revolutionized how we work, create, and communicate. The Fourth of July is a reminder of our nation’s innovative spirit, and the personal computer is a testament to what we can achieve through curiosity, creativity, and determination.

5. Smartphone

Apple’s introduction of the iPhone in 2007 was a watershed moment in technology. This little device, combining a phone, a music player, a camera, and a portable computer, has since evolved to influence every aspect of modern life—changing how we interact, access information, and entertain ourselves. As we celebrate our nation’s independence, we can take pride in knowing that one of the most transformative tools for communication and freedom of information was born from American ingenuity.

6. Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP)

Developed by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in the 1970s, TCP/IP is the fundamental framework for the Internet. This set of communication protocols enables the interconnection of diverse networks, making the global Internet possible. Without it, the complex web of networks we rely on would not function. Just as the Declaration of Independence established the principles of our nation, TCP/IP set the standards for global communication, making the World Wide Web an integral part of our daily lives.

7. The Assembly Line

Introduced by Henry Ford in 1913, the assembly line revolutionized manufacturing. By drastically cutting production times and costs, it enabled the mass production and democratization of consumer goods. This innovation not only transformed industries but also played a crucial role in shaping modern economies. As we celebrate the Fourth of July, we honor this innovation that embodies the American ideals of efficiency, ingenuity, and the drive to make life better for all.

8. The Cotton Gin

Invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, the cotton gin revolutionized the agricultural industry by efficiently separating cotton fibers from seeds. This innovation catalyzed the cotton industry, leading to significant economic growth, particularly in the American South. This Fourth of July, we recognize this pivotal innovation that showcased American problem-solving skills and led to transformative economic growth.

9. GPS Technology

Initially developed by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has since been made available for civilian use and has transformed navigation and location-based services. Whether for cars, smartphones, or even precision agriculture, GPS has become an indispensable tool in modern society. On this Independence Day, we salute this innovation that highlights our nation’s commitment to technological advancement and safety.

10. CRISPR-Cas9

This innovative gene-editing technology, developed by Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, has revolutionized genetic engineering. Although it’s a collaborative global effort, American research and institutions played a significant role in developing and refining this breakthrough. CRISPR-Cas9 holds promise for treating genetic disorders, improving crop resilience, and more. This Fourth of July, we honor this innovation that holds the promise to cure diseases, improve agriculture, and inspire future generations of American scientists.

Conclusion

As fireworks illuminate the sky this Fourth of July, let’s celebrate not only our nation’s independence but also the remarkable innovations that reflect the American spirit of discovery and progress. These top ten innovations, each a beacon of ingenuity and determination, continue to shape our world and the future.

May we draw inspiration from these milestones as we cherish our freedom and commit to fostering a culture of innovation that will drive our nation forward for generations to come.

Happy Fourth of July!

Image credit: Unsplash

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Is Disruption About to Claim a New Victim?

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Kodak. Blockbuster. Google?

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

You know the stories. Kodak developed a digital camera in the 1970s, but its images weren’t as good as film images, so it ended the project. Decades later, that decision ended Kodak. Blockbuster was given the chance to buy Netflix but declined due to its paltry library of titles (and the absence of late fees). A few years later, that decision led to Blockbuster’s decline and demise. Now, in the age of AI, disruption may be about to claim another victim – Google.

A very brief history of Google’s AI efforts

In 2017, Google Research invented Transformer, a neural network architecture that could be trained to read sentences and paragraphs, pay attention to how the words relate to each other, and predict the words that would come next.

In 2020, Google developed LaMDA, or Language Model for Dialogue Applications, using Transformer-based models trained on dialogue and able to chat.

Three years later, Google began developing its own conversational AI using its LaMDA system. The only wrinkle is that OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022.

Now to The Financial Times for the current state of things

“In early 2023, months after the launch of OpenAI’s groundbreaking ChatGPT, Google was gearing up to launch its competitor to the model that underpinned the chatbot.

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The search company had been testing generative AI software internally for several months by then. But as the company rallied its resources, multiple competing models emerged from different divisions within Google, vying for internal attention.”

That last sentence is worrying. Competition in the early days of innovation can be great because it pushes people to think differently, ask tough questions, and take risks. But, eventually, one solution should emerge as superior to the others so you can focus your scarce resources on refining, launching, and scaling it. Multiple models “vying for internal attention” so close to launch indicate that something isn’t right and about to go very wrong.

“None was considered good enough to launch as the singular competitor to OpenAI’s model, known as ChatGPT-4. The company was forced to postpone its plans while it tried to sort through the scramble of research projects. Meanwhile, it pushed out a chatbot, Bard, that was widely viewed to be far less sophisticated than ChatGPT.”

Nothing signals the threat of disruption more than “good enough.” If Google, like most incumbent companies, defined “good enough” as “better than the best thing out there,” then it’s no surprise that they wouldn’t want to launch anything.

What’s weird is that instead of launching one of the “not good enough” models, they launched Bard, an obviously inferior product. Either the other models were terrible (or non-functional), or different people were making different decisions to achieve different definitions of success. Neither is a good sign.

“When Google’s finished product, Gemini, was finally ready nearly a year later, it came with flaws in image generation that CEO Sundar Pichai called ‘completely unacceptable’ – a let-down for what was meant to be a demonstration of Google’s lead in a key new technology.”

“A let-down” is an understatement. You don’t have to be first. You don’t have to be the best. But you also shouldn’t embarrass yourself. And you definitely shouldn’t launch things that are “completely unacceptable.”

What happens next?

Disruption takes a long time and doesn’t always mean death. Blackberry still exists, and integrated steel mills, one of Clayton Christensen’s original examples of disruption, still operate.

AI, LLMs, and LaMDAs are still in their infancy, so it’s too early to declare a winner. Market creation and consumer behavior change take time, and Google certainly has the knowledge and resources to stage a comeback.

Except that that knowledge may be their undoing. Companies aren’t disrupted because their executives are idiots. They’re disrupted because their executives focus on extending existing technologies and business models to better serve their best customers with higher-profit offerings. In fact, Professor Christensen often warned that one of the first signs of disruption was a year of record profits.

In 2021, Google posted a profit of $76.033 billion. An 88.81% increase from the previous year.

2022 and 2023 profits have both been lower.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of June 2024

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Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are June’s ten most popular innovation posts:

The Surprising Downside of Collaboration in Problem-Solving — by Robyn Bolton
Designing Organizational Change and Transformation — by Stefan Lindegaard
Four Principles of Successful Digital Transformation — by Greg Satell
Managers Make the Difference – Four Common Mistakes Managers Make — by David Burkus
Learning to Innovate — by Janet Sernack
Think Outside Which Box? — by Howard Tiersky
Innovation the Amazon Way — by Greg Satell
Irrelevant Innovation — by John Bessant
Nike Should Stop Blaming Working from Home for Their Innovation Struggles — by Robyn Bolton
Time is a Flat Circle – Jamie Dimon’s Comments on AI Just Proved It — by Robyn Bolton

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in May that continue to resonate with people:

Why Organizations Struggle with Innovation — by Howard Tiersky
Time is Not Fundamental — by Geoffrey A. Moore
AI Strategy Should Have Nothing to do with AI — by Robyn Bolton
Six Steps to Creating a Brand Experience Personality — by Shep Hyken
Bad Questions to Ask When Developing Technology — by Mike Shipulski

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last four years:

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Humans Wanted for the Decade’s Biggest Innovation Challenges

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Humans Wanted for the Decade's Biggest Innovation Challenges

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

Every era is defined by the problems it tackles. At the beginning of the 20th century, harnessing the power of internal combustion and electricity shaped society. In the 1960s there was the space race. Since the turn of this century, we’ve learned how to decode the human genome and make machines intelligent.

None of these were achieved by one person or even one organization. In the case of electricity, Faraday and Maxwell established key principles in the early and mid 1800s. Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla came up with the first applications later in that century. Scores of people made contributions for decades after that.

The challenges we face today will be fundamentally different because they won’t be solved by humans alone, but through complex human-machine interactions. That will require a new division of labor in which the highest level skills won’t be things like the ability to retain information or manipulate numbers, but to connect and collaborate with other humans.

Making New Computing Architectures Useful

Technology over the past century has been driven by a long succession of digital devices. First vacuum tubes, then transistors and finally microchips transformed electrical power into something approaching an intelligent control system for machines. That has been the key to the electronic and digital eras.

Yet today that smooth procession is coming to an end. Microchips are hitting their theoretical limits and will need to be replaced by new computing paradigms such as quantum computing and neuromorphic chips. The new technologies will not be digital, but will work fundamentally different than what we’re used to.

They will also have fundamentally different capabilities and will be applied in very different ways. Quantum computing, for example, will be able to simulate physical systems, which may revolutionize sciences like chemistry, materials research and biology. Neuromorphic chips may be thousands of times more energy efficient than conventional chips, opening up new possibilities for edge computing and intelligent materials.

There is still a lot of work to be done to make these technologies useful. To be commercially viable, not only do important applications need to be identified, but much like with classical computers, an entire generation of professionals will need to learn how to use them. That, in truth, may be the most significant hurdle.

Ethics For AI And Genomics

Artificial intelligence, once the stuff of science fiction, has become an everyday technology. We speak into our devices as a matter of course and expect to get back coherent answers. In the near future, we will see autonomous cars and other vehicles regularly deliver products and eventually become an integral part of our transportation system.

This opens up a significant number of ethical dilemmas. If given a choice to protect a passenger or a pedestrian, which should be encoded into the software of a autonomous car? Who gets to decide which factors are encoded into systems that make decisions about our education, whether we get hired or if we go to jail? How will these systems be trained? We all worry about who’s educating our kids, but who’s teaching our algorithms?

Powerful genomics techniques like CRISPR open up further ethical dilemmas. What are the guidelines for editing human genes? What are the risks of a mutation inserted in one species jumping to another? Should we revive extinct species, Jurassic Park style? What are the potential consequences?

What’s striking about the moral and ethical issues of both artificial intelligence and genomics is that they have no precedent, save for science fiction. We are in totally uncharted territory. Nevertheless, it is imperative that we develop a consensus about what principles should be applied, in what contexts and for what purpose.

Closing A Perpetual Skills Gap

Education used to be something that you underwent in preparation for your “real life.” Afterwards, you put away the schoolbooks and got down to work, raised a family and never really looked back. Even today, Pew Research reports that nearly one in four adults in the US did not read a single book last year.

Today technology is making many things we learned obsolete. In fact, a study at Oxford estimated that nearly half of the jobs that exist today will be automated in the next 20 years. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be jobs for humans to do, in fact we are in the midst of an acute labor shortage, especially in manufacturing, where automation is most pervasive.

Yet just as advanced technologies are eliminating the need for skills, they are also increasingly able to help us learn new ones. A number of companies are using virtual reality to train workers and finding that it can boost learning efficiency by as much as 40%. IBM, with the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has recently unveiled a system that help you learn a new language like Mandarin. This video shows how it works.

Perhaps the most important challenge is a shift in mindset. We need to treat education as a lifelong need that extends long past childhood. If we only retrain workers once their industry has become obsolete and they’ve lost their jobs, then we are needlessly squandering human potential, not to mention courting an abundance of misery.

Shifting Value To Humans

The industrial revolution replaced the physical labor of humans with that of machines. The result was often mind-numbing labor in factories. Yet further automation opened up new opportunities for knowledge workers who could design ways to boost the productivity of both humans and machines.

Today, we’re seeing a similar shift from cognitive to social skills. Go into a highly automated Apple Store, to take just one example, and you don’t see a futuristic robot dystopia, but a small army of smiling attendants on hand to help you. The future of technology always seems to be more human.

In much the same way, when I talk to companies implementing advanced technologies like artificial intelligence or cloud computing, the one thing I constantly hear is that the human element is often the most important. Unless you can shift your employees to higher level tasks, you miss out on many of the most important benefits

What’s important to consider is that when a task is automated, it is also democratized and value shifts to another place. So, for example, e-commerce devalues the processing of transactions, but increases the value of things like customer service, expertise and resolving problems with orders, which is why we see all those smiling faces when we walk into an Apple Store.

That’s what we often forget about innovation. It’s essentially a very human endeavor and, to measure as true progress, humans always need to be at the center.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and previously appeared on Inc.com
— Image credits: Pixabay

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How Eavesdropping Can Unlocked Exponential Growth

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How Eavesdropping Can Unlocked Exponential Growth

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

It’s easy to get caught up in the hunt for unique insights that will transform your business, conquer your competition, and put you on an ever-accelerating path to growth. But sometimes, the most valuable insights can come from listening to customers in their natural environment. That’s precisely what happened when I eavesdropped on a conversation at a local pizza joint. What I learned could be worth millions to your business.

A guy walked into a pizza place.

Last Wednesday, I met a friend for lunch. As usual, I was unreasonably early to the local wood-fired pizza joint, so I settled into my chair, content to spend time engaged in one of my favorite activities – watching people and eavesdropping on their conversations.

Although the restaurant is on the main street of one of the wealthier Boston suburbs, it draws an eclectic crowd, so I was surprised when a rather burly man in a paint-stained hoodie flung open the front door. As he stomped to the take-out order window, dust fell from his shoes, and you could hear the clanging of tools in his tool belt. He placed his order and thumped down at the table next to me.

A Multi-Million Dollar Chat

He pulled out his cell phone and made a call. “Hey, yeah, I’m at the pizza place, and they need your help. Yeah, they hate their current system, but they don’t have the time to figure out a new one or how to convert. Yeah, ok, I’ll get his number. Ok if I give him yours. Great. Thanks.”

A few minutes later, his order was ready, and the manager walked over with his pizza.

Hoodie-guy: “Hey, do you have a card?”

Manager: “No, I don’t. Something I can help you with?”

H: “I just called a friend of mine. He runs an IT shop, and I told him you’re using the RST restaurant management system, and you hate it…”

M: “I hate it so much…”

H: “So my buddy’s business can help you change it. He’s helped other restaurants convert away from RST, and he’d love to talk to you or the owner.”

M: “I’m one of the co-owners, and I’d love to stop using RST, but we use it for everything – our website, online ordering, managing our books, everything. I can’t risk changing.”

H: “That’s the thing, my friend does it all for you. He’ll help you pick the new system, set it up, migrate you from the other system, and ensure everything runs smoothly. You have nothing to worry about.”

M: “That would be amazing. Here’s my direct line. Have him give me a call. And if he’s good, I can guarantee you that every other restaurant on this street will change, too. We all use RST, and we all hate it. We even talked about working together to find something better, but no one had time to figure everything out.”

They exchanged numbers, and the hoodie guy walked out with his pizza. The manager/owner walked back to the open kitchen, told his staff about the conversation, and they cheered. Cheered!

Are You Listening?

In just a few minutes of eavesdropping, I uncovered a potential goldmine for a B2B business – 15 frustrated customers, all desperate to switch from a system they hate but unable to do so due to time and resource constraints. The implications are staggering – an entire local market worth tens of millions of dollars ripe for the taking simply by being willing to listen and offer a solution.

As a B2B leader, the question is: are you truly tapping into the insights right in front of you? When was the last time you left your desk, observed your customers in their natural habitat, and listened to their unvarnished feedback? If you’re not doing that, you’re missing out on opportunities that could transform your business.

The choice is yours. Will you stay in your office and rely on well-worn tools, or venture into the wild and listen to your customers? Your answer could be worth millions.

Image credit: Pixabay

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We Must Reinvent Our Organizations for A New Era of Innovation

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We Must Reinvent Our Organizations for A New Era of Innovation

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

In the first half of the 20th century, Alfred Sloan created the modern corporation at General Motors. In many ways, it was based on the military. Senior leadership at headquarters would make plans, while managers at individual units would be allocated resources and made responsible for achieving mission objectives.

The rise of digital technology made this kind of structure untenable. By the time strategic information was gathered centrally, it was often too old to be effective. In much the same way, by the time information flowed up from operating units, it was too late to alter the plan. It had already failed.

So in recent years, agility and iteration has become the mantra. Due to pressures from the market and from shareholders, long-term planning is often eschewed for the needs of the moment. Yet today the digital era is ending and organizations will need to shift once again. We’re going to need to learn to combine long-range planning with empowered execution.

Shifting From Iteration To Exploration

When Steve Jobs came up with the idea for a device that would hold “a thousand songs in my pocket,” it wasn’t technically feasible. There was simply no hard drive available that could fit that much storage into that little space. Nevertheless, within a few years a supplier developed the necessary technology and the iPod was born.

Notice how the bulk of the profits went to Apple, which designed the application and very little to the supplier that developed the technology that made it possible. That’s because the technology for developing hard drives was very well understood. If it hadn’t been that supplier, another would have developed what Jobs needed in six months or so.

Yet today, we’re on the brink of a new era of innovation. New technologies, such as revolutionary computing architectures, genomics and artificial intelligence are coming to the fore that aren’t nearly as well understood as digital technology. So we will have to spend years learning about them before we can develop applications safely and effectively.

For example, companies ranging from Daimler and Samsung to JP Morgan Chase and Barclays have joined IBM’s Q Network to explore quantum computing, even though that it will be years before that technology has a commercial impact. Leading tech companies have formed the Partnership on AI to better understand the consequences for artificial intelligence. Hundreds of companies have joined manufacturing hubs to learn about next generation technology.

It’s becoming more important to prepare than adapt. By the time you realize the need to adapt, it may already be too late.

Building A Pipeline Of Problems To Be Solved

While the need to explore technologies long before they become commercially viable is increasing, competitive pressures show no signs of abating. Just because digital technology is not advancing the way it once did doesn’t mean that it will disappear. Many aspects of the digital world, such as the speed at which we communicate, will continue.

So it is crucial to build a continuous pipeline of problems to solve. Most will be fairly incremental, either improving on an existing product or developing new ones based on standard technology. Others will be a bit more aspirational, such as applying existing capabilities to a completely new market or adopting exciting new technology to improve service to existing customers.

However, as the value generated from digital technology continues to level off, much like it did for earlier technologies like internal combustion and electricity, there will be an increasing need to pursue grand challenges to solve fundamental problems. That’s how truly new markets are created.

Clearly, this presents some issues with resource allocation. Senior managers will have to combine the need to move fast and keep up with immediate competitive pressures with the long-term thinking it takes to invest in years of exploration with an uncertain payoff. There’s no magic bullet, but it is generally accepted that the 70/20/10 principle for incremental, adjacent and fundamental innovation is a good rule of thumb.

Empowering Connectivity

When Sloan designed the modern corporation, capacity was a key constraint. The core challenge was to design and build products for the mass market. So long-term planning to effectively organize plant, equipment, distribution and other resources was an important, if not decisive, competitive attribute.

Digitization and globalization, however, flipped this model and vertical integration gave way to radical specialization. Because resources were no longer concentrated in large enterprises, but distributed across global networks, integration within global supply chains became increasingly important.

With the rise of cloud technology, this trend became even more decisive in the digital world. Creating proprietary technology that is closed off to the rest of the world has become unacceptable to customers, who expect you to maintain API’s that integrate with open technologies and those of your competitors.

Over the next decade, it will become increasingly important to build similar connection points for innovation. For example, the US military set up the Rapid Equipping Force that was specifically designed to connect new technologies with soldiers in the field who needed them. Many companies are setting up incubators, accelerators and corporate venture funds for the same reason. Others have set up programs to connect to academic research.

What’s clear is that going it alone is no longer an option and we need to set up specific structures that not only connect to new technology, but ensure that it is understood and adopted throughout the enterprise.

The Leadership Challenge

The shift from one era to another doesn’t mean that old challenges are eliminated. Even today, we need to scale businesses to service mass markets and rapidly iterate new applications. The problems we need to take on in this new era of innovation won’t replace the old ones, they will simply add to them.

Still, we can expect value to shift from agility to exploration as fundamental technologies rise to the fore. Organizations that are able to deliver new computing architectures, revolutionary new materials and miracle cures will have a distinct competitive advantage over those who can merely engineer and design new applications.

It is only senior leaders that can empower these shifts and it won’t be easy. Shareholders will continue to demand quarterly profit performance. Customers will continue to demand product performance and service. Yet it is only those that are able to harness the technologies of this new era — which will not contribute to profits or customer satisfaction for years to come — that will survive the next decade.

The one true constant is that success eventually breeds failure. The skills and strategies of one era do not translate to another. To survive, the key organizational attribute will not be speed, agility or even operational excellence, but leadership that understands that when the game is up, you need to learn how to play a new one.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and previously appeared on Inc.com
— Image credits: Pixabay

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The Surprising Downside of Collaboration in Problem-Solving

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The Surprising Downside of Collaboration in Problem-Solving

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

You are a natural-born problem solver. From the moment you were born, you’ve solved problems. Hungry? Start crying. Learning to walk? Stand up, take a step, fall over, repeat. Want to grow your business? Fall in love with a problem, then solve it more delightfully than anyone else.

Did you notice the slight shift in how you solve problems?

Initially, you solved problems on your own. As communication became easier, you started working with others. Now, you instinctively collaborate to solve complex problems, assembling teams to tackle challenges together.

But research indicates your instincts are wrong. In fact, while collaboration can be beneficial for gathering information, it hinders the process of developing innovative solutions. This counterintuitive finding has significant implications for how teams approach problem-solving.

What a Terrorism Study Reveals About Your Team

In a 2015 study, researchers used a simulation developed by the U.S. Department of Defense to examine how collaboration impacts the problem-solving process. 417 undergrads were randomly assigned to 16-person teams with varying levels of “interconnectedness” (clarity in their team structure and information-sharing permissions) and asked to solve aspects of an imaginary terrorist attack scenario, such as identifying the perpetrators and target. Teams had 25 minutes to tackle the problem, with monetary incentives for solving it quickly.

Highly interconnected teams “gathered 5 percent more information than the least-clustered groups because clustering prevented network members from unknowingly conducting duplicative searches. ‘By being in a cluster, individuals tended to contribute more to the collective exploration through information space—not from more search but rather by being more coordinated in their search,’”

The Least Interconnected teams developed 17.5% more theories and solutions and were more likely to develop the correct solution because they were less likely to “copy an incorrect theory from a neighbor.”

How You Can Help Your Team Create More Successful Solutions

You and your team rarely face problems as dire as terrorist attacks, but you can use these results to adapt your problem-solving practices and improve results.

Work together to gather and share information. This goes beyond emailing around research reports, interview summaries, and meeting notes. “Working together” requires your team to take action, like conducting interviews or writing surveys, with one another in real-time (not asynchronously through email, text, or “collaboration” platforms).
Start solving the problem alone. For example, at the start of every ideation session, I ask people to spend 5 minutes privately jotting down their ideas before group brainstorming. This prevents copying others’ theories and ensures all voices are heard. (not just the loudest or most senior)
Invite the “Unusual Suspects” into the process. Most executives know that diversity amplifies creativity, so they invite a mix of genders, ages, races, ethnicities, tenures, and industry experiences to brainstorming sessions. While that’s great, it also results in the same people being invited to every brainstorm and, ultimately, creating a highly interconnected group. So, mix it up even more. Invite people never before invited to brainstorming into the process. Instead of spending a day brainstorming, break it up into one-hour bursts at different times of the day.

Are You Willing to Take the Risk?

For most of your working life, collaboration has been the default approach to problem-solving. However, this research suggests that rethinking when and how to leverage collaboration can lead to greater success.

Making such a change isn’t easy – it invites skepticism and judgment as it deviates from the proven “status quo” process.

Are you willing to take that risk, separating information gathering from solution development, for the potential of achieving better, more innovative outcomes? Or will you remain content with “good enough” solutions from conventional methods?

Image credit: Unsplash

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Department Of Energy Programs Helping to Create an American Manufacturing Future

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Department Of Energy Programs Helping to Create an American Manufacturing Future

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

In the recession that followed the dotcom crash in 2000, the United States lost five million manufacturing jobs and, while there has been an uptick in recent years, all indications are that they may never be coming back. Manufacturing, perhaps more than any other sector, relies on deep networks of skills and assets that tend to be highly regional.

The consequences of this loss are deep and pervasive. Losing a significant portion of our manufacturing base has led not only to economic vulnerability, but to political polarization. Clearly, it is important to rebuild our manufacturing base. But to do that, we need to focus on new, more advanced, technologies

That’s the mission of the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) at the Department of Energy. By providing a crucial link between the cutting edge science done at the National Labs and private industry, it has been able to make considerable progress. As the collaboration between government scientists widen and deepens over time, US manufacturing may well be revived.

Linking Advanced Research To Private Industry

The origins of the Department of Energy date back to the Manhattan Project during World War II. The immense project was, in many respects, the start of “big science.” Hundreds of top researchers, used to working in small labs, traveled to newly established outposts to collaborate at places like Los Alamos, New Mexico and Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

After the war was over, the facilities continued their work and similar research centers were established to expand the effort. These National Labs became the backbone of the US government’s internal research efforts. In 1977, the National Labs, along with a number of other programs, were combined to form the Department of Energy.

One of the core missions of the AMO is to link the research done at the National Labs to private industry and the Lab Embedded Entrepreneurship Programs (LEEP) have been particularly successful in this regard. Currently, there are four such programs, Cyclotron Road, Chain Reaction Innovations, West Gate and Innovation Crossroads.

I was able to visit Innovation Crossroads at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and meet the entrepreneurs in its current cohort. Each is working to transform a breakthrough discovery into a market changing application, yet due to technical risk, would not be able to attract funding in the private sector. The LEEP program offers a small amount of seed money, access to lab facilities and scientific and entrepreneurial mentorship to help them get off the ground.

That’s just one of the ways that the AMO opens up the resources of the National Labs. It also helps business get access to supercomputing resources (5 out of the 10 fastest computers in the world are located in the United States, most of them at the National Labs) and conducts early stage research to benefit private industry.

Leading Public-Private Consortia

Another area in which the AMO supports private industry is through taking a leading role in consortia, such as the Manufacturing Institutes that were set up to to give American companies a leg up in advanced areas such as clean energy, composite materials and chemical process intensification.

The idea behind these consortia is to create hubs that provide a critical link with government labs, top scientists at academic universities and private companies looking to solve real-world problems. It both helps firms advance in key areas and allows researchers to focus their work on where they will have the greatest possible impact.

For example, the Critical Materials Institute (CMI) was set up to develop alternatives to materials that are subject to supply disruptions, such as the rare earth elements that are critical to many high tech products and are largely produced in China. A few years ago it developed, along with several National Labs and Eck Industries, an advanced alloy that can replace more costly materials in components of advanced vehicles and aircraft.

“We went from an idea on a whiteboard to a profitable product in less than two years and turned what was a waste product into a valuable asset,” Robert Ivester, Director of the Advanced Manufacturing Office told me.

Technology Assistance Partnerships

In 2011, the International Organization for Standardization released its ISO 50001 guidelines. Like previous guidelines that focused on quality management and environmental impact, ISO 50001 recommends best practices to reduce energy use. These can benefit businesses through lower costs and result in higher margins.

Still, for harried executives facing cutthroat competition and demanding customers, figuring out how to implement new standards can easily get lost in the mix. So a third key role that the AMO plays is to assist companies who wish to implement new standards by providing tools, guides and access to professional expertise.

The AMO offers similar support for a number of critical areas, such as prototype development and also provides energy assessment centers for firms that want to reduce costs. “Helping American companies adopt new technology and standards helps keep American manufacturers on the cutting edge,” Ivester says.

“Spinning In” Rather Than Spinning Out

Traditionally we think of the role of government in business largely in terms of regulation. Legislatures pass laws and watchdog agencies enforce them so that we can have confidence in the the food we eat, the products we buy and the medicines that are supposed to cure us. While that is clearly important, we often overlook how government can help drive innovation.

Inventions spun out of government labs include the Internet, GPS and laser scanners, just to name a few. Many of our most important drugs were also originally developed with government funding. Still, traditionally the work has mostly been done in isolation and only later offered to private companies through licensing agreements.

What makes the Advanced Manufacturing Office different than most scientific programs is that it is more focused on “spinning in” private industry rather than spinning out technologies. That enables executives and entrepreneurs with innovative ideas to power them with some of the best minds and advanced equipment in the world.

As Ivester put it to me, “Spinning out technologies is something that the Department of Energy has traditionally done. Increasingly, we want to spin ideas from industry into our labs, so that companies and entrepreneurs can benefit from the resources we have here. It also helps keep our scientists in touch with market needs and helps guide their research.”

Make no mistake, innovation needs collaboration. Combining the ideas from the private sector with the cutting edge science from government labs can help American manufacturing compete for the 21st century.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and previously appeared on Inc.com
— Image credits: Pixabay

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Learning to Innovate

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Learning to Innovate

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

One of my coaching clients shared with me recently how she was feeling insecure in her job role and lacking motivation. The company she works for is acknowledged as an entrepreneurial industry leader. Because it is currently being challenged by poor sales performance, it has hunkered down and frozen any change initiatives, learning programs or new projects until mid-2025. My client is in a substantial Research and Development function, crucial to innovation, so we aimed to explore new ways of helping the company use their existing equipment (capital investments) and resources (people and expertise) to design and deliver low-cost and sustainable innovations to the market. To create a focused, meaningful, purposeful role and a values-based motivating opportunity for my client to be proactive, that impacts the company by adding value to the bottom line by improving productivity and cost efficiency because anyone can learn to innovate.

Learning to innovate

As a result of our short time together, my client felt confident and empowered, motivated and energized, to invest time in learning how to apply her current skills and strengths, focus and attention to connect with key people and resources, explore options globally for identifying new business development opportunities, and in developing her technical skillset.

My client enrolled in an online innovation learning program to learn to innovate by acquiring the fundamentals of mindset and behavior changes to shift their thinking and act differently.

The innovation imperative has shifted

Productivity growth needs to accelerate

According to McKinsey and Co, in the article “Investing in Productivity Growth” it’s not only time to raise investment and catch the next productivity wave; the world needs to and can accelerate productivity growth.

“Productivity growth means getting more from our work and our investments. It is especially needed now as the world faces the many challenges of a new geo-economic era. Productivity growth is the best antidote to the asset price inflation of the past two decades, which has created about $160 trillion in “paper wealth” and even larger amounts of new debt”.

Adapting to the new net zero reality

The world is currently not on track to meet net-zero targets, yet many opportunities are available to accelerate efforts and help meet de-carbonization goals. Whilst some progress has been made to reduce global carbon emissions, under the current trajectory, the world won’t achieve net-zero emissions even during this century. Again, according to McKinsey and Co., in an article “Adapting to the new net-zero reality”, mitigation efforts alone are no longer sufficient – the world will need to adapt as well by going green, ramping up technologies and increasing investments.

Improving cost efficiencies

According to new BCG research, corporate leaders are making better cost management a priority as a hedge against ongoing economic, financial, and political uncertainties, stating that:

“Wholesale cuts are one way to manage costs. However, drastic measures such as sudden workforce reductions may lead to unintended consequences because they fail to address the root causes of inefficiencies. Nor do they position an organization for future success”.

Generative Ai is a critical enabler of innovation

Whether the organization focuses on developing new products, services, processes, or business models, Generative AI (GenAI) can enhance and challenge the work of leaders and teams across all phases of the innovation cycle and process.

By learning to innovate through knowing how to generatively question and listen, reveal and challenge operating beliefs and test assumptions to enable them to emerge, diverge, converge and prioritize high-quality creative ideas for change.

According to BCG in a recent article, “To Drive Innovation with GenAI, Start by Questioning Your Assumptions.”

“GenAI’s most prominent contribution is in idea generation and validation—innovation’s divergence and convergence phases. Yet, it can play an even more critical role in helping leaders confront and update the strategic assumptions at the foundation of their business and innovation strategies: the doubt phase of the cycle. Organizations that regularly question their beliefs are more resilient because they are more likely to see and position themselves to benefit from the shifts on which competitive advantage turns”.

The innovation imperative is paradoxical.

Suppose we combine the contradictory features or qualities of developing productivity growth while adapting to the new net zero reality and improving cost efficiencies. In that case, many organizations have reverted to their conventional, business-as-usual focus, relying on Generative Ai to solve their problems.

This demonstrates a typically faddish response to a revolutionary, transformative new invention whilst being avoidant and resisting the urgent need to change by building the fundamental foundations in learning to innovate.

Thinking and acting differently

Anyone can learn to innovate, and it starts with allowing, accepting and acknowledging that a business-as-usual focus, avoiding risk, making the tough decisions and resisting change are no longer effective, profitable, or sustainable because:

We all know that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
We can no longer afford to keep producing the same results that no one wants.
We can’t solve the problem with the same thinking that created it; we have to learn how to be, think and act differently to deliver the sustainable and innovative solution we want to have.

Learning to innovate requires a radical strategic shift

Harnessing collective intelligence

Anyone can learn to innovate; it’s simply a matter of knowing, combining, leveraging and scaling people’s multiple and collective intelligence – heads/cognition, hearts/emotions and hands/actions.

Revealing and closing knowing-doing gaps

Then, we should align these to close the significant knowing-doing gap or disconnect between what people know and what people do.

Everyone knows that innovation is the most impactful lever to use to scale and leverage change, yet are primarily unwilling to pause, stop and take time to retreat from their short-term focus, pay attention and reflect on how to equip people with the innovation fundamentals by getting people’s:

Heads to make sense of innovation and what innovation means by defining and framing it in their organization’s unique context, setting a strategic focus, determining the level of risk involved in achieving it, and mitigating the roadblocks that may arise.
Hearts aligned to embody and enact what innovation means by setting and sharing a passionately purposeful reason for innovation, building change receptivity and readiness for designing and delivering a range of bespoke deep learning processes and equipping people to activate it.
Hands dirty by creating a safe environment where people are encouraged to emerge and share creative ideas and permission and be allowed to experiment by making small bets and mistakes and learning by doing to know what not to do.

Innovation requires a strategic and systemic focus

Innovation is subjective and contextual, so it must be defined and framed in an organization’s unique context. It requires a strategic and systemic focus, so an organization needs to agree on whether they will choose an incremental, sustainable or disruptive strategy and the level of risk.

The 21st century requires us to unlearn, learn, and relearn a different set of mindsets, behaviors, and skills, and anyone can learn to innovate.

Commitment and conviction to learn to innovate

It’s only through being committed and having the conviction that my coaching client now has – to explore new ways of helping their organizations use their existing capital investments, collective intelligence, people resources, and expertise, supported by Generative AI and deep learning processes, to design and deliver low-cost and sustainable innovations to the market.

Image Credit: Pexels

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Nike Should Stop Blaming Working from Home for Their Innovation Struggles

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GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

“But even more importantly, our employees were working from home for two and a half years. And in hindsight, it turns out, it’s really hard to do bold, disruptive innovation, to develop a boldly disruptive shoe on Zoom.” – John Donahoe, Nike CEO

I am so glad CNBC’s interview with Nike’s CEO didn’t hit my feed until Friday afternoon. It sent me into a rage spiral that I am just barely emerging from. Seriously, I think my neighbors heard the string of expletives I unleashed after reading that quote, and it wasn’t because it was a lovely day and the windows were open.

Blaming remote work for lack of innovation is cowardly. And factually wrong.

I’m not the only one giving Mr. Donahoe some side-eye for this comment. “There were a whole bunch of brands who really thrived during and post-pandemic even though they were working remotely,” Matt Powell, advisor for Spurwink River and a senior advisor at BCE Consulting, told Footwear News. “So I’m not sure that we that we can blame remote work here on Nike’s issues.”

There’s data to back that up.

In 2023, Mark (Shuai) Ma, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, and Yuye Ding, a PhD student at the university’s Katz Graduate School of Business, set out to empirically determine the causes and effects of a firm’s decision to mandate a return to work (RTO). They collected RTO mandate data from over 100 firms in the S&P 500, worked backward to identify what drove the decision, and monitored and measured the firm’s results after employees returned to work.

Their findings are stark: no significant changes in financial performance for firm value after RTO mandates and significant declines in employee job satisfaction. As Ma told Fortune, “Overall, our results do not support these mandates to increase firm values. Instead, these findings are consistent with managers using RTO mandates to reassert control over employees and blame employees as a scapegoat for firm bad performance.”

Or to justify spending more than $1B to double the size of its Beaverton, OR campus.

When you start blaming employees, you stop being a leader.

CEOs make and approve big, impactful, complex, high-stakes decisions. That’s why they get paid the big bucks. It’s also why, as Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here.”

Let’s examine some of the decisions Mr. Donahue made or supported that maybe (definitely) had a more significant impact on innovation than working from home two days a week.

Ignoring customers, consumers, and the market: Nike has a swagger that occasionally strays into arrogance. They set trends, steer culture, and dictate the rules of the game. They also think that gives them the right to stop listening to athletes, retailers, and consumers, as evidenced by the recently revealed Team USA Track & Field uniforms, the decision to stop selling through major retailers like Macy’s and Olympia Sports, and invest more in “hype, limited releases, and old school retro drops” than the technology and community that has consumers flocking to smaller brands like Hoka and Brooks.

Laying off 2% of its workforce: Anyone who has ever been through a layoff senses it’s coming months before the announcement and the verdicts are rendered. Psychological safety, feeling safe in your environment, is a required element for risk-taking and innovation. It’s hard to feel safe when saying goodbye to 1500 colleagues (and wondering if/when you’ll join them).

Investing too much in the core: Speaking of safety, in uncertain times, it’s tempting to pour every resource into the core business because the ROI is “known.” Nike gave in to that temptation, and consumers and analysts noticed. Despite recent new product announcements like the Air Max DN, Pegasus Premium, and Pegasus 41, “analysts point out these ‘new’ innovations rely too much on existing franchises.”

Innovation is a leadership problem that only leaders can solve

Being a CEO or any other senior executive is hard. The past four years have been anything but ordinary, and running a business while navigating a global pandemic, multiple societal upheavals, two wars, and an uncertain economy is almost impossible.

Bosses blame. Leaders inspire.

Mr. Donohue just showed us which one he is. Which one are you?

One MORE thing

This is a losing battle, but STOP USING “DISRUPTIVE” INCORRECTLY!!!! “Disruptive Innovation,” as defined by Clayton Christensen, who literally coined the phrase, is an innovation that appeals to non-consumers and is cheaper and often lower quality than existing competitors.

Nike is a premium brand that makes premium shoes for premium athletes. Employees could spend 24/7/365 in the office, and Nike would never develop and launch a “boldly disruptive shoe.”

Image credit: Pixabay

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