Archive for August, 2009
In this 4-minute video clip, I illustrate some of the principles from our book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue, using one of my favorite magic tricks, a version of the cut and restored paper trick. It speaks to the need for the innovation community in a corporation and other elements to be aligned with the true objectives and goals of the corporation. I performed this effect for the audience of the CoDev conference on open innovation in 2009, where I came up with this line: “If you’re not aligned, you’re skewed.” See if it fits.
From YouTube.com/magicinnovation (the Magic Innovation channel): “Analogy of the Cut and Restored Paper Strip: Alignment and Connectivity for Innovation Success,” August 13, 2009. Recorded in Appleton, Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
The Analogy of the Soda Can: Overcoming Innovation Fatigue in Your Innovation Community
Posted by: | CommentsIn our newly released book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, July 2009), we offer guidance for innovators, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and policy makers. Today I’d like to speak to leaders of teams or organizations where innovation matters but seems to be less effective than it should be. Innovation fatigue can set into an innovation community for a wide variety of reasons we discuss in the book. When that happens, the solution is not necessarily to punt and discard your team. The first step should be to look within and identify the fatigue factors that may have left your would-be innovators feeling disconnected and empty. Has there been a breach of trust that needs to be rebuilt? Are there barriers that keep your innovation community out of the loop and disconnected from the needs of the market place? (If so, see our chapter on the Horn of Innovation!) Are there steps you need to take to recharge your innovation group with the energy and innovation fizz they used to have?
My short video clip below uses an analogy with aluminum cans to help illustrate the problem and recommended approach. It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I hope it makes a point. OK, it’s a bit lame and amateurish – just trying to make a point in a round-about way. No trick photography is used.
From http://youtube.com/magicinnovation: “The Analogy of the Cans: Energizing Your Innovation Community.”
Innovative Packaging to Alleviate Competitive Threats: Lessons from Aleve®
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Some tremendous products don’t reach their potential in the marketplace due to inattention to packaging. Smart entrepreneurs in consumer goods, medical products, and other areas understanding that packaging not only governs much of the response of shoppers to your product on the shelf, but also can affect its value and function after purchase. Child resistant packaging is a classic example of this. Medications with child-resistant packaging can frustrate and irritate many consumers, and even lead to non-use of the product and failure to repurchase. Many child-resistant caps are hard top open for adults with limited mobility, hand injuries, arthritis, etc. Some frustrate strong, healthy adults, and have even led to injuries as people strive to pry a lid open with a tool.
One clever and perhaps under appreciated innovation in this space is the “Safety SquEase®” bottle developed by Procter & Gamble for Aleve® (now owned by Bayer), the over-the-counter (OTC) pain reliever that is the nonprescription strength of Anaprox® (naproxen). I held a bottle of Aleve® for the first time recently and was really impressed with how they combined ease of opening with child-resistance. Turns out there’s a real story of innovation behind this product, with at least three patents that I’m aware of:
- US Pat. No. 5,038,454, “Injection Blow Molding Process for Forming a Package Exhibiting Improved Child Resistance,” issued to Thornock et al., August 13, 1991.
- US Pat. No. 4,948,002, “Package Exhibiting Improved Child Resistance Without Significantly Impeding Access by Adults,” issued to Thorncock et al., Aug. 14, 1990.
- US Design Pat. No. D330,677, issued to Thornock and Goldberg, Nov. 3, 1992.
The system took years to develop and drew upon fundamental insights into the capabilities of children. Their inability to do two different things at once was the key insight that guided the clever, low-force development of Aleve®’s package. Rather than requiring high forces to be applied or complex operations that could frustrate many adults, the Aleve® package merely requires light force on two opposing tabs on the side of the bottle at the same time the cap is turned. Press gently with one hand, turn with the other: two different motions that stymie young children but are easy for adults. Looks like a minor packaking tweak, but the simplicity of the solution has extensive data and years of serious work behind it. Many elegant innovations are that way. Anyone can make something complex – it’s elegance that demands real brains and real sweat. Or grit, as some would say.
The Aleve® packaging system was the topic of a presentation to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on March 28, 1995 as part of their Safety Sells Conference, available online at http://www.cpsc.gov/businfo/6001.html. The presentation by Gordon F. Brunner, a Senior V.P. at Procter and Gamble, provides valuable insights on how packaging innovations can provide potent competitive advantage while solving critical real-world problems such as safety. Here is an excerpt from Grodon Brunner’s talk:
P&G developed and patented a new bottle closure, “Safety SquEase,” that meets government requirements for child-resistance. It also adds value and consumer satisfaction to a new P&G over-the-counter analgesic by making it easy to open for most adults, including senior citizens.
My case study concerns P&G’s patented new child-resistant closure, which we have named the “Safety SquEase.” One year ago this Thursday we were honored to receive the CPSC Chairman’s first-ever “Commendation for Significant Contributions to Consumer Product Safety” for our invention and marketing of this new closure.
The “Safety SquEase” closure has been used on bottles of Aleve, our new, long-lasting, over-the-counter analgesic drug, since its introduction last year. We have also begun using it on our Scope mouthwash product and will introduce it on our Vicks NyQuil and DayQuil cough relief products this coming fall.
To really convey how we developed the “Safety SquEase,” I need to give you the context. Two long-standing corporate policies had a major influence. The first was P&G’s policy regarding the human and environmental safety of its products and packages. The second was P&G’s stated corporate purpose to create and deliver products of superior quality and value that best satisfy consumer needs. . . .
The development of the “Safety SquEase” cap for P&G’s Aleve brand analgesic is an excellent illustration of our drive for product and package superiority. For those of you who haven’t heard about it, Aleve is the result of a joint venture between P&G and Syntax Labs. The aim was to introduce an over-the-counter version of Anaprox, a fast-acting sodium form of the medicine in Naprosyn. Naprosyn, sold by Syntax, had been the leader in the Rx non-steroidal anti- inflammatory drug market for a decade. The thinking was to do what had been done in the early ’80′s when Rx ibuprofen, led by Motrin, was converted into the Advil’s and Nuprin’s of today.
When used at over-the-counter (OTC) dosages, sodium Naproxen has advantages over acetaminophen, ibuprofen and aspirin. . . . At the same time, we knew that our competitors in the highly contested OTC analgesics business would not take Aleve’s entry lightly. Consequently, we wanted to increase Aleve’s margin of superiority with consumers if at all possible.
Our packaging people thought they had an answer — develop a truly user-friendly child-resistant package. Child-resistant packages are required for products like Aleve to help prevent very young children from consuming toxic amounts out of curiosity. Personal experience, feedback from family and friends, and consumer research, however, told us that adults regarded existing child-resistant packages as hard to open. Read More→
Almost like something out of a Utopian science fiction novel, two neighboring research communities, Fusionopolis and Biopolis, stand as R&D beacons to scientists and companies across the globe, rising from the small island nation of Singapore and its remarkable research park, One North. Fusionopolis and Biopolis are visible fruits of a dramatic new focus on innovation in Singapore. Not just innovation in biomedical fields, the specialty of Biopolis, or innovation in advanced science and engineering at Fusionopolis, but innovation in innovation itself. The leaders of Singapore, recognizing that innovation is the key to the future of this small nation with so few natural resources, are developing new ways to innovate, to collaborate, and to stimulate commercialization. As they find new ways to collaborate with companies and researchers around the world, they are striving for the upper end of the Ascent of Collaboration scale, guided by the nation’s most prominent scientific ministry devoted to innovation, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, or A*STAR.
Singapore, whose name comes from the Malay word for “Lion City,” has been a riddle to the West for years. The 5th wealthiest country in the world based on GDP per capita, it is also one of the smallest (250 square miles) and one of only four remaining city-states in the world. It is truly a melting pot, a nation of multiple ethnicities and religions among its 5 million people, with four national languages: English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese. How can such a small island city with few natural resources have become so prosperous? How can a community with so much diversity seem to have so much unity? How can a country known for order and discipline be a hotbed of creativity and innovation?
Boon Swan Foo and A*STAR
Boon Swan Foo, Executive Chairman at Exploit Technologies
Singapore’s booming emphasis on science, technology, and innovation were on my mind when I contacted Boon Swan Foo, Executive Chairman of Exploit Technologies, the strategic marketing and commercialization arm of A*STAR. A*STAR’s mission is to foster world-class scientific research and to develop human capital for a knowledge based Singapore. It funds billions of dollars of research, drives collaboration between global companies and Singapore, and works to commercialize the fruits of its R&D work.
A*STAR comprises the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC), the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC), Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd (ETPL), the A*STAR Graduate Academy (A*GA) and the Corporate Planning and Administration Division (CPAD).
Boon oversees the commercialization and spin-off activities for A*STAR’s intellectual property and technologies. Under his leadership, A*STAR has accumulated a portfolio of close to 3,000 active patents, granted more than 250 licenses for its technologies, and created a portfolio of two dozen spin-off companies. Estimated business revenue to be generated by licensees from sales of products and provision of services using or incorporating A*STAR’s technologies is projected to be over S$500M.
Insights from the Interview
Boon Swan Foo proudly explained that his nation is pursuing and promoting innovation in numerous ways, not just by funding world-class R&D centers. Singapore is innovating in its educational systems, in its airlines and airport system, in its management of ports, in its roads and traffic management, and so forth.
“Our civil servants are very enterprising,” Boon explained. “One does not have to be an entrepreneur to be an innovator. They are intrapreneurs rather than entrepreneurs.”
The economy of Singapore is often described as an entrepot economy, in which imports are purchase and given added value which are then exported. Singapore imports numerous raw materials that are then converted to pharmaceuticals, chemicals, computer chips, electronics, and other goods for export. The Port of Singapore is the world’s busiest. Further, it has an exceptionally well educated work force as a result of the nation’s education policy, which helps achieve success in their business operations and in innovation.
Now R&D is becoming an increasingly important part of Singapore. Over 3% of their $200 billion GDP is spend on R&D. They know innovation is the key for a bright future. The goal is to develop pools of ideas in targeted fields and also to develop deep pools of local talent. Read More→