The Best Practices of Technology Brokers Companies that are best at developing out-of-the-box thinking on new products employ four successful work practices. An excerpt from the new book, How Breakthroughs Happen. by Andrew Hargadon Technology brokers have discovered how to bridge the disparate worlds they move among outside their boundaries, and how to build new ventures from the technologies and people they come across. In the process, they have developed four intertwined work practices that help them do this: capturing good ideas, keeping ideas alive, imagining new uses for old ideas, and putting promising concepts to the test. Capturing good ideas The first step is to bring in promising ideas. Designers at IDEO, for example, seem obsessed with learning about materials and products they have no immediate use for. Technology brokers capture even more ideas from doing focused work on specific problems, especially when studying new industries or visiting new locations. The result?
Innovation - Experts BCG's experts represent a rich and diverse group whose experience encompasses the key issues faced by companies around the world. For every focus area, we also have local experts who provide key insights into the dynamics of each individual market. Our integrated network of experts allows us to share best practices and leverage crucial information on the latest trends. Zhenya LindgardtSenior Partner & Managing DirectorNew YorkView video interview with Zhenya Lindgardt about the impact that business-model innovation can have on an organization. Hadi ZablitPartner & Managing DirectorParisRead the interview with Hadi Zablit about locating research and development (R&D) operations in rapidly developing economies (RDEs). Andrew TaylorPartner & Managing DirectorChicago Our Publications
Innovation and the Value Network Today I will tell you why it is so hard for you to get your innovative new idea to spread quickly. Well, one of the reasons, at least. It’s because the economy is so interconnected. This is a bit counterintuitive – after all, I was just telling you how we can use networks to spread ideas. The good side of networks is that they can make it easier for ideas to spread. The problem with networks is that to get people to actually adopt your new idea, you often have to get them to break links within their existing network, and this can be very difficult. Value networks show up in most of the various business model frameworks. As an illustration, here is a model of the value network for mobile phones, adapted from the book Invisible Engines by Evans, Hagiu & Schmalensee. Apple has chosen to control everything within the circle – in other words, everything! In contrast, look at the position within the value network that Google has taken with Android:
Teaching the spirit of entrepreneurship The field of entrepreneurship owes a great deal to Joseph Schumpeter. He argued that innovation and technological change come from the "entrepreneur-spirit". The field of entrepreneurship owes a great deal to Joseph Schumpeter. He argued that innovation and technological change come from the "entrepreneur-spirit." But is that spirit something that can be taught in business schools? MBA graduates and aspiring entrepreneurs Monisha Varadan (‘10D) and Joachim Vandaele (‘10D) told INSEAD Knowledge how the school prepared them for this challenge - and what they learned once they were out in the field. For Vandaele, the life-changing moment was the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp. Rather than follow the typical entrepreneurial route and launching their own start-up, Varadan and Vandaele decided to look for a company three to five years into its activity that they could take to another level. The two entrepreneurs will know over the next few days whether their bid has been accepted. Bios
Demos | Projects The Atlas of Ideas In May 2007, the United Arab Emirates launched a $10bn foundation to create research centres in Arab univerisities. In Brazil, a consortium of 80 organisations has teamed up to invest $3 billion in biotechnology. In Qatar, a gleaming 2,500 acre 'Education City' is now home to international campuses of five of the world's top universities. Wherever in the world you look, new enrants are reshaping the landscape for science and technology-based innovation. In early 2007, Demos published a series of reports on science and technology-based innovation in China, India and South Korea, and the prospects for closer collaboration with the UK and Europe. For further information on specific projects, visit:- Brazil: The Natural Knowledge-Economy; - Knowledge Nomads; - The Atlas of Islamic World Innovation For further information about the Atlas of Ideas, please contact James Wilsdon (james[dot]wilsdon[at]royalsociety[dot]org) Publications Related Articles
The Seven Deadly Sins That Choke Out Innovation | Co.Design In most companies, there's a profound tension between the right-brainers (for lack of a better term) espousing design, design thinking and user-centered approaches to innovation and the left-brained, more spreadsheet-minded among us. Most C-suites are dominated by the latter, all of whom are big fans of nice neat processes and who pay good money to get them implemented rigorously. So often, the innovation process is treated as a simple, neat little machine. Put in a little cash and install the right process, and six months later, out pops your new game-changing innovation -- just like toast, right from the toaster. But that, of course, is wrong. Last night, Ryan Jacoby, the heads of IDEO's New York practice, gave a talk at NYU/Poly with just that tension in mind, titled Leading Innovation: Process Is No Substitute. 1: Thinking the answer is in here, rather than out there "We all get chained to our desks and caught up in email," he said. 2: Talking about it rather than building it
Better Business Models Lead to Better Businesses I read in a blog post over the weekend about someone who had switched from an iPhone to a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. Their comment on the move was something like “and I’m glad that I did, because the Galaxy is a much better phone.” What does that remind you of? It reminds me of what all of the Apple users were saying in the early 90s about Apple’s OS versus Windows – that the Apple was objectively a much better product. In both cases, the statements are probably true. From what I’ve seen, I suspect that the Galaxy is a better phone. And yet, Microsoft dominated the desktop in throughout the 90s with Windows, and Apple is doing pretty well in smartphones now. It’s because their business models were better. Entrepreneurs are typically more passionate about their solution than any other part of the business model which left unchecked can become a problem. I’ve talked about the importance of the value network part of your business model before. Where is all of that extra profit coming from?
Networking: Is it vital to an entrepreneur’s success? Can sharing an idea help take it from the drawing board to the marketplace? Talk may cost nothing but new research indicates it gives an entrepreneur a better chance of success. It may not be necessary to have the charisma of Bill Gates or the late Steve Jobs to sell a new idea successfully but even getting your product to the first stage of development can take a certain degree of fraternising. The need for ‘networking’ among entrepreneurs was recently noted by a group of prominent Arab businessmen who obtained the support of vivacious, U.S. venture capitalist and deal-maker Bill Glynn, to launch an exclusive, members-only networking club supporting corporate entrepreneurship and innovation in the Middle East. ‘The Firm’ is hand-picking its membership of corporate ‘intrapreneurs’ – those working within organisations - business development experts and potential investors, to create a platform on which new ideas can connect with capital and know-how. Surviving the early years
Demos | People Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He has advised companies, cities and governments around the world on innovation strategy and drawn on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity, which charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning. We-think, which is due to be published in 2007, is the latest in a string of acclaimed books: Living on Thin Air, a guide to living and working in the new economy; Up the Down Escalator, an attack on the culture of public pessimism accompanying globalisation and In Search of Work, published in the 1980's, which was one of the first books to predict the rise of more flexible and networked forms of employment. In 2005 Charles was ranked by Accenture, the management consultancy, as one of the top management thinkers in the world.
Is this the future of shopping? Japanese store rolls in digital hangers Japan tend to be very creative when it comes to digital products and innovations, creating concepts that wouldn't even be considered by the Western world. One such area that has seen this happen is in clothes shopping which is usually a very straightforward process. However, a Japanese department store has decided to make the experience digital and let the store respond to what products the customer looks at. 109 Men, located in the Shibuya district in Tokyo, has introduced digital clothes hangers in one of its shops. Visually the hangers are no different than any ordinary hanger but it has a larger center which houses a RFID chip. When you handle or take off the hanger from the railing, the RFID chip sends a signal to a computer which interacts with digital displays located around the product. The hangers are a brilliant idea as not only do they advertise the product but the videos and music blend in with the store. The hangers were created by Japanese company Team Lab.