What will you create today?
via youtube.com
I ask myself this everyday.
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New Report Available on Advanced Wound Management Worldwide
The $5 billion global market for wound management products and technologies is comprised of commodity-like dressings and bandages (little differentiation beyond price) as well as advanced wound management products like physical wound healing systems (NPWT, others) designed to tackle the pervasive problem of high-cost, chronic wounds.
MedMarket Diligence's 2009 report, Worldwide Wound Management, 2009: Established and Emerging Products, Technologies and Markets in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Rest of World, reveals the opportunities for the diversity of wound management products, with country-specific detail for the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Italy, and United Kingdom, with breakdown also for the Rest of World category and the global market by product segment. The report may be ordered for download online.
3 Spaces of Innovation - A spatial metaphor to rethink creative processes
Tim Brown's book 'Change by Design' (http://tiny.cc/g4KME) has inspired me to draw this map.
In his great book he explains the innovation process by describing the rooms (for inspiration, ideation, implementation) in which innovation happens.
Bringing Passion to Business - Day 2, Session 2 of TedIndia
So I caught session 2 live from TedIndia staying up until 2:30am! Here are a few recaps of the speakers:
Speaker 1: Srivasta Krishna asks why is the future of infrastructure changing? Is it the government's or business' responsibility to keep sustainability in mind when applying it to infrastructure? The way infrastructure is thought of today needs a fundamental change in how it is created, maintained and funded- if the taj mahal was built before how come a road can't be built today?
Speaker 2: Dr. R.A. Mashelkar gave us some great terms and definitions. The most noteworthy, "Ghandian engineering" which means "more from less for more". Dr. Mashelkar gave examples including drug development where we are getting less results for more money for less people. He left with words of advice, "focus and you can achieve" along with his most inspirational moment being "convex lens leadership".
Speaker 3: Anneka Jong represented generation Y and emphasized that Gen Y is on board with social entreprise and that we are now more interested in teaching a person to fish. I agree.
Speaker 4: Tony Hsieh from Zappos really impressed me. I loved his talk about the science of happiness. He explains how Zappos' business model is happiness. 2 books were mentioned as recommended reading, "Good to Great" and "Tribal Leadership". I have read "Good to Great" and have "Tribal Leadership" on my list. Both of these books talk about what makes companies succeed and last. The most common characteristic is that great companies have a vision. They ask themselves, what would you be so passionate about doing beyond $$$. Hsieh says, "Chase the vision, not the $$$". To have a good workforce, managers, supervisors, leaders need to ask what is the largest vision in your employees work besides money. The second thing Hsieh mentions that separates companies are companies with a core value system. These core values need to be written in a simple, committable way. For example, Zappos' core values include, be humble besides talented. To motivate employees, companies need to inspire employees through company culture where corporate values match personal values. Vision and culture and inspire and motivate employees. Hsieh takes the second half of his speech to talk about happiness. He says, if you ask someone what is their goal in life and keep following up with why, everyone will reach the same answer of happiness. He recommends another book, "Positive Psychology" which explains how normal people can become happier. In general, people are very bad at predicting long term happiness. If the ultimate goal is happiness for everyone, what if everyone just spent some percentage of time to learn about the science of happiness and take a shortcut to get to their state of happiness. Hsieh continues to talk about a few of the frameworks of happiness:
1. Perceived control
2. Progress
3. Connectedness (# and depth of relationships) and vision (being part of something bigger than yourself) Hsieh mentions Maslow's book "Peak" and explains the trasformation of the perception of work from, job -->career --> calling. To get to the point of calling, you retain employees as long as they keep growing personally and professionally within the company. Hsieh explains the 3 types of happiness:
1. Rockstar happiness- chasing the next high but not sustainable
2. Passion/Flow of Happiness - engaged in some activity - change environment to have more of those happy activities
3, Meaning - being part of something bigger than yourself
---most people focus on the 1st type of rockstar happiness but research shows being part of meaning is the happiest state.Overall, it was a great talk. Hsieh ends with asking, what percentage of time do you want to spend to learn about the science of happiness? It is a thought I hadn't considered. But, his talk has inspired me to look into it. It makes sense. Conclusion:
The rest of the speakers included Scott Cook from Intuit, Mohnish Pabrai who won a date with Warren Buffett and cricket star, Harsha Bogle. Cook's talk mentioned the use of mobile texting to share price information with farmers except he needs input of how to make it a cost-affordable business model. Pabrai questions when to give money, at the time when we have less but more energy or later when we are frail but have more money. He alludes to the method that Buffet has given money to the Gates Foundation as a good example. His quote of the session was, "We come naked and we leave naked" from the world. And of course, Bogle talks about Cricket and how it has been "the world's longest running soap opera". And explains the introduction of movie starts and cheerleaders to cricket and relates that as how one small change has led to a big revolution in the sport. I believe what Bogle says, "how a small change leads to a big revolution". It is good to think about. At times, ideas are not given enough credit because it will not disrupt a system. But I am seeing how sometimes the smallest change from methodology has created some of the biggest impacts in our world. I left sesion 2 excited. Inspired. And ready to sleep. I look forward and hope that TED posts the rest of the talks and am looking forward to catching day 2 tonight!
8 simple ways NOT to succeed at open innovation | via NESTA
1. Forget to communicate with the outside world - It sounds almost too obvious, but alas it isn't. I've seen many a large organisation get so wrapped up in their open innovation process to the extent that they completely forget to tell anybody external about it thereby rendering the entire endeavour pointless. Don't forget to talk to people about what you are doing or are looking for, through as many communications channels as possible.
2. Banish your critics - Your critics can be your most valuable collaborators. I've seen one large company act totally out of all proportion when their PR department discovered a single negative blog post (with negligible readership) about their open innovation initiative. They wanted to exclude said blogger from the process, which would have almost certainly led to more negative coverage. In the end we persuaded them to engage in a conversation which was challenging but ultimately hugely beneficial.3. Focus on 'what?' not 'who?' - There is a sequence of activities that occur in open innovation that cannot be bypassed. Namely you start with lots of conversations, some of which will lead to a smaller number of some kind of relationships. Importantly trust needs to be earned and takes time to develop. Eventually, some transactions will follow that create value. So when starting with open innovation, as well as asking 'what is the idea/technology/opportunity?' it is crucial to also ask the question 'who are the potential collaborators and how can we get to know them better?'.
4. Misunderstand the difference between hierarchies and informal networks - Hierarchies work primarily through 'command and control' whereas informal networks work through 'trust'. Both are crucial but mixing the two can be fatal. Don't do it. All complex innovation challenges now involve hierarchies - which are multiple hierarchies interwoven with multiple informal networks - and we need to understand them both. According to social network guru Karen Stephenson, at any point in time, informal networks trump hierarchy, however over time hierarchies trump informal networks. In other words informal networks have power but hierarchies preserve longevity.
5. Fail to suspend judgement - According to psychologist Stuart Sutherland, the inability to suspend judgement is one of the most prevalent aspects of irrational. And yet suspending judgement and being open to new ideas and opinions is also a vital component that allows unconventional and innovative ideas to develop and grow. Most of us like to think of our selves as rational beings and yet why can so few of us suspend judgement. Try it...you never know what might happen?
6. Mange risk down to zero - Open innovation is not about selling certainty, it's all about managed uncertainty. Open innovation is all about shared reward and without stepping outside of your comfort-zone it will be very difficult to drive the process forward. Procter and Gamble estimate that only one in a hundred good ideas make it to market whether they come from within or outside, but external ideas will often have greater potential. Of course you should manage your risk but be very careful not to overdo it.
7. Death by analysis paralysis - The single biggest thing that squashes most innovation is a lack of momentum which kills all hope of any getting an innovation getting to market. All too often this happens for valid reasons like seeking consensus around multiple departments. It can be really helpful to have a clear and quick process agreed up front, and preferably published to the outside world so there is little chance you can renege on that commitment, whilst recognising the need to be flexible if necessary too.
8. Overestimate your own brilliance - As Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems so eloquently once said 'Not all the smart people work for you'. We estimate that 99% of the solutions to all of your innovation problems are already out there somewhere. And yet most organisations focus 99% of their innovation efforts on inventing new stuff. We would argue that to be successful at open innovation make sure you network as hard within the organisation as outside. So go and find the smart people and listen to what they have to say as ccombining different perspectives is key any innovation.
Everybody today talks about and claims Open Innovation for its innovation strategy: Here is what you shouldn't do when you really take it seriously on Open Innovation.
The Device Industry Is Too Easy a Target
In a Nov. 5 article in the NY Times, Barry Meier takes more than a scathing perspective of the device industry. By the account given, the medical device industry runs like a series of businesses (gasp) with the audacity to focus on profit. But it gets worse, since Mr. Meier asserts that this profit motive is secondary only to self-preservation (if one were to swap "device industry" with "tobacco industry" in his text, there would be little difference in the argument). Further exacerbating the resulting high costs of devices, he says, is the fact that the physicians who prescribe medical devices are either all ignorant of anything that distinguishes one device from another, or they don't care, or they are paid by manufacturers -- with no apparent exception.
This type of hyperbole is precisely what prohibits meaningful efforts at reform. If the device industry is demonized, then the opportunity to have them part of the solution -- since their only choice is to contribute to a solution, because maintaining the status quo is impossible -- is lost. The characterization of the device industry in this way is far closer to caricature than truth.
Purdue trying new approach to the classroom with Hotseat
via mashable.com
Given that I went to Indiana, it is very difficult for me to give Purdue credit for anything. That said, now that I'm not actually in school anymore, I guess I can force myself to step back and recognize innovation when I see it.
The school just launched Hotseat, a new approach to engaging students in classroom discussions by embracing real-time interaction through twitter, facebook, and texting. Academia has for one reason or another been pretty slow at times to embrace technology and new ways of interaction and connecting that the social web allows, so it's pretty uplifting to see a true step towards changing the way teaching and the educational system work, and how they may evolve to better fit into the 21st century.
It's a pilot program for now, but if it takes off and is successful with students (and, importantly, faculty are able to adjust to getting not-always-positive feedback in real time), then I hope it's something that would eventually spread to other schools in some form or another.
Anyone know of any other universities (or even high schools for that matter) trying out something similar?
Innovative Video Painting
A multimedia studio named Sweat Shoppe has “developed a new interactive technology that enables them to explore the relationship between video, mark making and architecture.” They call this technique “video painting,” which doesn’t use any paint or post-production effects.
