Innovation Flow

As we move into the New Year , it would be worthwhile to ask how to create New Ideas from Old Ideas. New Ideas are constantly born as Old Ideas die - I am reminded of the title of Matt Ridley’s.TED talk “When Ideas have Sex. It is true that one can combine old ideas and create new ideas. I went on to think about how I can create New Ideas out of Old Ideas and here are my thoughts. I am a problem-solver and I solve problems whether I like it or not ! When I was walking and wondering who we really are, I realised that we are problem-solvers. We spend a good part of our life solving problems – either our own problem or others’ problem. When I said only a good part of our life and not our entire life, I had in mind the time that we also spend in creating the problems. With the recent trend of globalization, we are also solving problems that are far away from us in space – the recent successes in Reverse Innovation indicate that we are doing the right thing [1]. Also, some...

Liquid Metal Battery Technology - Donald Sadoway (MIT) Image Source - http://www.technologyreview.com/photogallery/427701/making-liquid-metal-batteries/ We often hear about the goodness of alternative energy, like solar and wind - then what is holding us back from using them ? The primary concern is how do we manage when the Sun is not around in the night or when the wind is not blowing - these concerns shifts our focus to the energy storage technologies. Currently we use solid state batteries. A fundamental technology evolution trend is to move from solid to liquid - it is easy to predict that the next revolution in energy storage will come from all-liquid batteries. We see evidence for the "TRIZ technology evolution trend of Solid - Liquid - Gas - Field" in many domains. Donald Sadoway is working on a battery miracle -- an inexpensive, incredibly efficient, three-layered battery using “liquid metal. His Inventive thinking is best des...

Difficult situations and critical moments are like the surprise tests that were subjected to while at School. By definition, they are surprises but we need to be prepared for it. Gita teaches us how to think and prepare ourselves to handle the difficult situations in our life. The Hero, Arjuna is a good person and has only noble intentions. He is brave and well-trained in warfare – he was Drona’s best student. He had powerful brothers to support and Krishna as a friend to advise. Despite of all these positive aspects, he was unable to face the situation. All his knowledge and training was of no help. He was reduced to a helpless state and was unable to think and act. If this is is the fate of Arjuna, the great hero, what chances do we have. I may have the best education, secure job, supporting family etc but I may become an Arjuna-when I am confronted with a difficult situation. How do I handle such critical moments in my life? How do I prepare myself ? Who is my friend Krish...

There were three paths that diverge into the woods all the three were less travelled so I wondered which path to take but as I travelled, I realised that all the three lead to the same woods The first path helps the Innovator to arrive at an insight purely through Knowledge. In-depth knowledge arrived a through disciplined analysis. Intimate knowledge of the Customer. Holistic knowledge of the ecosystem. Predictive knowledge of Market and Technology evolution. Intuitive knowledge of the barriers to idea diffusion etc. The second path helps the Innovator to create value (to the Customer) purely through his devotion to the cause. Many good ideas fail to bring significant value to the Customer. When the Innovator is devoted to the cause - he understands the Customer's pain points well and he is focused on shaping the Idea to create value to the Customer.  The third path helps the Innovator to exceute the Idea purely through Action...

The right brain helps us to get a new idea. In fact it offers us many new ideas and we register and act on a few of those. The left brain helps us to make the Idea work. Hence it is obvious that we need to learn to use both the right and left guys effectively. The funny thing about these two neighbours is that they dont get along well (like most neighbours). When the right guy talks, the left guy jumps in and criticizes him. Then the right guy becomes silent. Real innovation happends when these two guys can sing a duet together. How do you control these two guys and make them speak in tandem ? - this is a million dollar question for an individual or an organization that wants to excel in Innovation. Helps comes from the ancient Indian science of Pranayama - balancing the life breath. I attended a Medidation camp at Adi Sankara Nilayam (Sankaracharya's birthplace in Kerala). The Meditation was taught by Guruji Tejomayananda who head the Chinmaya Interna...

Creativity is not a process, right ? (Tim Cook, The Apple CEO) http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/85214-tim-cooks-freshman-year-the-apple-ceo-speaks?src=longreads&utm_source=buffer&buffer_share=f156d I agree with Tim, Creativity is not a process. In fact many creative folks fear that a process may well wipe out whatever creativity that exists. But Creativity and Innovation are not synonymous. Innovation is still a process. Innovation is the process of (a) using creativity to create insightful ideas (b) using these ideas to craete value to the Customer and (c) taking that value-creating idea to the Market successfully. Creativity will yield good ideas. But a process is still needed to make that creative idea solve real problems and craete value to customer. Without a structured process, it is difficult to take an idea (however great it is) successfully to the Market. So Tim, Innovation is a process unlike Creativity.

• What is the real challenge in innovation ? The poor conversion of good ideas into truly valuable innovation. The fundamental issues behind this challenge are - How to create the vision for technology innovation? How to engage the experts and focus their efforts? How to organize the resources? How to deliver the innovations in time? • How is it a challenge? When ideas don’t evolve into innovations, the inventors get discouraged, technology managers are frustrated, stakeholders are disappointed, technology development stagnates, the business loses confidence in R&D, new product development falls into a coma and ultimately the market suffers. • Who faces the challenge? Technologists and scientists everywhere face this challenge whether they are in university research groups, government laboratories, industrial R&D teams in large companies, small technology start-ups etc. Though the innovation environment is significantly different across these organi...