Measuring Innovation: Sustaining competitive advantage by turning ideas into value. - BearingPoint. “Sometimes it seems like money is being poured into creating solutions that meet no customer need.” Equally, what are often seen as mistakes and discarded because they have little relevance to the problem at hand can be of great value if only you can find the right context in which to apply them. Ideas don’t necessarily occur in the “right order” (or to the “right people”) and problems can jump up when least expected. Recognising insights when they occur and being open minded enough to give them air time brings us closer to having a “self-aware” or even “self-innovating” organisation. The challenge is to fully utilise our finite resource by managing Innovation towards the best outcome.
Ideas from others may at first seem difficult to comprehend … but rejecting them out of hand could represent a missed opportunity that could set you apart. For every problem there is a person with an idea that if worked on could yield Innovation that solves that problem Key Questions: Why everything new isn’t an innovation. Markburnett : Samsung Galaxy Gear running... Rumor: Samsung Galaxy Gear Specifications Leaked. We have seen a number of leaks in the past that points towards the possible launch of the mysterious smartwatch from the Korean giant – Samsung Galaxy Gear. The device is expected to see the daylight on 4 September at IFA 2013 but we haven’t really seen what it will bring at the table. A new rumor confirms that Samsung Galaxy Gear will debut on 4 September along with Galaxy Note 3 in Berlin and specifications it will bring at the table.
The smartwatch is expected to feature a dual-core Exynos 4212 SoC with a clock speed of 1.5GHz with ARM Mali-400 MP4 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and 1GB RAM. The device will come with a 1.67 inch display sporting a resolution of 320 x 320 pixels and 2MP camera. On the connectivity side, the device will bring NFC and Bluetooth technology as well. Let me remind you, take this rumor with a grain of salt as we have not seen any official announcement from Samsung regarding this. Source: SamMobile. SiriusXM: Ready for prime time? Jenny Neill assesses the satellite radio broadcaster's chances of becoming the largest telematics service provider in North America.
In this day and age, anything satellite seems like an anachronism, unless you live in some remote corner of the Earth, in which case having news and information beamed to you from space is still your only option. Not so in North America, where more than 25 million people are happy to spend $14 a month to listen to satellite radio, mostly in the car. Now Sirius XM Radio (SiriusXM), the company that controls this lucrative market with two satellites covering the entire United States, two thirds of Canada and two thirds of Mexico, wants to become one of North America’s largest telematics service providers (TSPs).
The initial announcement, which was made in June at Telematics Detroit 2013, centered around the company’s plans to use its single-cell, six-megabit satellite broadcast technology to deliver over-the-air software updates to connected vehicles. T-shirts developed that could charge mobile phones. 10 July 2012Last updated at 13:21 ET The researchers turned the t-shirt fabric into a 'supercapacitor' Scientists at the University of South Carolina have found a way to use a cheap T-shirt to store electrical power. It could pave the way for clothes that are able to charge phones and other devices. Experts predict that new technologies including roll-up smartphones and laptops will be on the market soon.
These developments would spur on the need for "flexible energy storage", said the professor behind the project. Xiaodong Li, a professor of mechanical engineering at the university teamed up with post-doctorate researcher Lihong Bao to find a solution. The pair wrote up their findings for the Advanced Materials journal. They used a T-shirt bought from a local discount store, which was soaked in a solution of fluoride, dried and then baked in an oxygen-free environment at high temperature. Hybrid fabric "This created a stable, high-performing supercapacitor," said Prof Li. Is your organization ready for a “work swarm”? « The Blend. Gartner has published a fascinating list of how the world of work may change as we move forward.
The ideas posed within the article were intriguing. But one idea in particular – the concept of a “work swarm” – caught my attention. Work must change to meet the world Borrowed from nature, Gartner describes a work swarm as a “flurry of collective activity” to deal with non routine problems at work. The concept implies agility – and it is simple to apply this idea to how organizations solve problems or meet important challenges. The ability to “swarm” or quickly assemble a cross-functional or cross-departmental team to problem solve, could be viewed as a key marker concerning an organization’s ability to innovate.
Stretching the elements of organizational structure Removing obstacles to implement swarming can prove to be a challenge for many organizations. Work swarming should also allow needed experts outside of the organization to flow in. The Key to Sustainable Product Creation: The Marriage of Engineering and Design, by Dawn Danby. Posted by core jr | 1 May 2012 | Comments (1) Energy Strategy for the EcoFridge collaboration between UC Berkeley Engineering and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Design students "I don't know about this whole sustainability thing, anymore," a student said to me recently. "No offense. It seemed cool for a while. But a lot of the stuff I see is weak. " These days I spend a lot of time with students and brand-new grads.
They're fired up to make an impact, and are impatient with solutions that don't directly take on big issues like e-waste and energy scarcity. Waste is money. Make friends with engineers Performance is an engineer's main priority, and is the key to their creativity. Many of the best sustainable design student projects I see come from interdisciplinary teams. Technical solutions can be dreamed up by scientists and clean tech engineers, but the viable projects incorporate beauty, form and human factors. Tell stories with numbers Design for Humans Conclusion. Eight Dangers of Collaboration - Nilofer Merchant. The Ten Faces of Innovation » The Ten Faces.
The Learning Personas Individuals and organizations need to constantly gather new sources of information in order to expand their knowledge and grow, so the first three personas are learning roles. These personas are driven by the idea that no matter how successful a company currently is, no one can afford to be complacent. The world is changing at an accelerated pace, and today's great idea may be tomorrow's anachronism. The learning roles help keep your team from becoming too internally focused, and remind the organization not to be so smug about what you “know”.
People who adopt the learning roles are humble enough to question their own worldview, and in doing so they remain open to new insights every day. The Anthropologist is rarely stationary. The Experimenter celebrates the process, not the tool, testing and retesting potential scenarios to make ideas tangible. The Organizing Personas The Collaborator is the rare person who truly values the team over the individual. The United States Of Design. Early last November, Scott Wilson was feeling a little gloomy.
The partnership in a startup he had worked on relentlessly for a year had fallen apart, leaving him with little but regret over the time he had spent away from his family and his Chicago design studio, Minimal. But this is the United States, a country famous for second acts. So after a few days of moping, Wilson, a serial entrepreneur with a corporate stint as global creative director of Nike's watch division, jumped back in. He had a new idea--and a novel plan for funding it. Wilson's brainchild was an innovative watch that grafted the body of an iPod Nano onto an aluminum case, turning the little touch screen into a cool, wrist-circling gadget that could wake you up in the morning, play your music, and even, with the help of a Nike+ chip mounted on the side, track your daily run.
That's when Wilson turned to Kickstarter, the web-based funding platform for independent creative projects. He posted his idea on November 16. What The New Patent Reform Act Means For Innovation. Late last night the Senate voted 89-9 to pass the America Invents Act that would radically reshape patent laws, and President Obama is expected to sign it without delay. It's the first such significant bill in 60 years, and it has one key component: It moves the onus from merely "inventing" a patentable idea first to becoming the person who actually files for an innovation first. If the subtlely of this eludes you, then here's what the big hopes are for the act: By making this structural change about who gets assigned a patent, U.S. law will line up better with international law (which may simplify global-scale IP problems).
It may simplify red tape, let the USPTO tackle a massive backlog of patent applications that're snarled in existing red tape, and it could disable a class of patent troll who documents an idea but never applies for a patent until someone else does, replicating their invention. Whew. Okay, before we explore that in greater depth, some quick backstory.
Measuring Innovation: Sustaining competitive advantage by turning ideas into value. New flat flexible speakers might even help you catch planes & trains. A groundbreaking new loudspeaker, less than 0.25mm thick, has been developed by University of Warwick engineers, it's flat, flexible, could be hung on a wall like a picture, and its particular method of sound generation could make public announcements in places like passenger terminals clearer, crisper, and easier to hear. Lightweight and inexpensive to manufacture, the speakers are slim and flexible: they could be concealed inside ceiling tiles or car interiors, or printed with a design and hung on the wall like a picture. Pioneered by University of Warwick spin-out company, Warwick Audio Technologies' the 'Flat, Flexible Loudspeaker' (FFL) is ideal for public spaces where it delivers planar directional sound waves, which project further than sound from conventional speakers.
He says: "We believe this is a truly innovative technology. Its size and flexibility means it can be used in all sorts of areas where space is at a premium. For further information, please contact: or 31st March 2009.
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