Invention Machine’s Innovation Agenda

I have been writing regularly about innovation trends and the importance of executives championing a company’s innovation agenda. Now let me share with you my company’s innovation agenda and give you a taste of what’s to come in 2010.

Our innovation agenda is pretty straight forward. Hire and retain the best minds. Help drive and sustain our customers’ innovation initiatives and boost their return on innovation. Our technology is designed to strategically infuse innovation into every step of the product development process and deliver the right products, quickly and cost effectively — which in turn positively impacts a company’s bottomline.     

Like many CEOs, I meet with customers regularly to learn about their challenges and achievements. I then share the information with my team so they can create new technology or programs to meet our client’s innovation goals. Each week I also meet with my executive team and collectively design and shape our corporate agenda. Here are Invention Machine’s focus areas for the year:

Product Development

As leaders in our industry, we pay close attention to our customers needs and act on them quickly. Several months ago, they told us that collaboration and identifying experts were important to their business. We delivered Invention Machine Goldfire 6.0, with automatic expert identification and collaboration functionalities, along with other new features. Now global teams can use the technology to better collaborate and work outside their silos.

As the role of innovation is expanding, so is the usage of Goldfire, our innovation intelligence platform. Initially thought to be the exclusive domain of scientists and engineers, companies now recognize that innovation happens across the organization, every day. Mapping to this shift, we have decided to broaden Goldfire’s innovation workflows and are looking to add new workflows for tasks such as tracking user sentiment and technology landscaping. 

We will also incorporate additional capabilities to manage broad deployments while making the software easier to adapt across multiple departments. New language support will be added to expand Goldfire’s current multi-lingual offerings of English, French, German and Japanese. 

Client Services

This year, our focus is shifting from just successful software implementations to becoming a trusted advisor. To ensure our customers success, my team has created roadmaps to empower users to easily design an Innovation Intelligence Ecosystem, build high performance teams and see return on innovation  within 90 days. Our innovation experts will work closely with individuals to tailor the use of Goldfire to their specific job functions as well as design customized workshops for broader groups that will help the team further accelerate the innovation process.

Marketing

As innovation practitioners and champions, our clients are dedicated to delivering successful projects.  As we all know, just delivering great products and processes are not enough. One must effectively communicate the value of innovation initiatives to their peers and other potential communities across an organization. Therefore I have asked my marketing department to engage with our clients and their internal communications team to create campaigns that will effectively spread the word of their innovation success. This will also help attract people from other departments and geographies who may be able to pitch in as well as learn from best practices, all of which will foster better collaboration and impact revenue.

These are some highlights. Obviously I am not giving you every detail of our corporate strategy. Would you? In the meantime, I’d love to hear how you help drive your company’s innovation agenda.

Green Innovation in a Struggling Economy

Despite the state of the economy, companies must incorporate green innovation process and design eco-friendly products. In fact, an Aberdeen Group study found 62% of manufacturers are pursuing green product development initiatives. Yet, most companies are unsure about where to begin, how to prioritize investments and justify the high cost of going green. 

Needless to say, going green is a business imperative that drives a company’s bottom-line and competitiveness.  Green innovation is primarily about new product development and redesigning existing products so they are environmentally compliant.

Here are some tips on going green the right way, based on observations and conversations with leading innovation companies:  

• Identify a sustainability executive to champion and measure green innovation initiatives. The program must tie to the company’s business objectives and drive revenue.     
• Operationalize green across the enterprise so ‘design for green’ becomes part of the standard innovation process – whether it’s new product development or redesigning products, they must comply with the sustainability guidelines.
• Assess and understand what percentage of your company’s intellectual property portfolio is green compliant and quickly transform those patents into market-leading, eco-friendly products.  
• Use innovation software to generate concepts that identify green compatible material substitutions to upgrade strategic products so they meet environmental and regulatory standards.    
• Utilize semantic technology to research and apply revolutionary principals such as biomimicry to design eco-friendly products.

In short, companies that adopt and drive green innovation initiatives will gain financial and competitive edge, which in turn will help foster people, planet and profitability. 

What are your thoughts on going green?

Stimulating the Innovation Economy

We have long known that the best way to spur the economy is via job retention, job creation and executing on a strong innovation agenda. In most cases it’s up to the CEOs, not politicians, to design the agenda and drive the innovation economy.

Lately we’ve been hearing some positive news that show the economy may be mildly stabilizing. Several companies have reported strong earnings results and America’s GDP rose by 5.7 percent at the end of 2009, the best economic growth in six years. Yet, many people are still losing their jobs and struggling to pay their mortgage.

Granted, turning a global economy around is a Herculean task. I am glad the president is talking about job creation and the economy. But as some of the CEOs advising the government have said, we need policies and programs to sustain economic growth, not just short term stimulus projects.

As politicians and advisors tackle the issue on a macro level, let’s look at what companies can do to stimulate the innovation economy:

Focus: As I have said before, 2010 is the start of an innovation decade. We are on the cusp of major breakthroughs and America could once again top the list of most innovative countries (U.S. is currently #8). But in order to succeed, CEOs must continue to drive the innovation agenda and stay focused on the end game, i.e. profitability and growth. CEOs must encourage teams to create an innovation process that’s sustainable, adopt technology that empowers engineers to deliver the right products the first time and mitigate risks associated with product innovation. No company can afford 12 product failures for every one success, which is the case today.

Practical innovations: CEOs are the catalyst for delivering innovative products and services that impact our world today, from life saving medical technologies to planet saving green products. I often hear about interesting new ideas that claim to be breakthrough innovations. However, if a majority of users won’t adopt the product or can’t purchase it because of high price points, the product is not a useful innovation. And, the company is simply wasting resources and money. Successful innovation should address both functional and economic criteria.

Expand to retain: To succeed in a global economy, companies need long term planning that will mobilize teams and sustain cutting-edge product delivery. If you have happy customers, look for opportunities to expand product usage within your customer base. If you have a successful product line, identify adjacent market opportunities to bring in additional revenue. With sustained profitability and growth, a company can expand its employee base, and an innovative company will find it easier to attract and retain best talents.

Personalization: It’s all about relationships and knowing what your customers really want. This help companies design products or programs that closely match consumer needs. For example, for a B2B business like ours, we have to understand what ‘innovation success’ looks like to our enterprise customers. In most cases, they want to show innovation milestones within 90 days. So we created a “90 Days to Innovation” customizable program that allows Invention Machine Goldfire users to demonstrate success and ROI within 90 days.

Running a company isn’t rocket science and these concepts are not new. I strongly believe that it is our responsibility as CEOs to deliver the results we promise to our employees, customers and shareholders. So, I am sharing the philosophies I use to run my company, philosophies that have made Invention Machine a successful and growing company.

Now that you know my views, I’d love to know yours. What else can companies do to stimulate the innovation economy?

Seven Years and Counting

I recently passed the seven year mark as CEO of Invention Machine. You’d think that I’d get the ‘seven year itch’, reevaluate my life and look for the next opportunity. Frankly, I can’t imagine separating myself from Invention Machine given the global innovation trends and the traction we’ve built and are seeing in the industry.

Last month we hosted our second user conference in Boston. It was attended by innovators from 10 countries, representing some of the best minds in the manufacturing industry. Right after the two-day event, CTO James Todhunter and I left for a trip to Europe and Asia. There, we met with more than a dozen customers and partners. Needless to say, the discussions around innovation were stimulating. The feedback, outstanding.

Here are highlights of what I heard from our clients at the conference and around the world:

• Companies recognize the benefit of investing in innovation, despite the recession. A quick analysis showed that companies that attended our October user conference outperformed market by 11.5% over the past 13 months. Investing in innovation does deliver results.
• Companies are making Invention Machine Goldfire the standard for concept research and sustainable innovation.
• Invention Machine is meeting their corporate innovation agenda, including identifying new markets, designing competitive products in half the time, and repurposing technology to drive revenue.
• Invention Machine Goldfire is a game changer, they said. It powers an innovation intelligence ecosystem that delivers precise intelligence to scientists and engineers and other innovators across the organization. Translation: companies are saving on labor costs, increasing productivity, delivering the right products the first time, and repurposing existing products into new markets – all of which leads to increased market share and competitive-edge.  
• Resellers are excited to be part of our global network, especially the new resellers who can now meet the innovation demands of small and medium businesses.

 As a CEO, such feedback is music to my ear. And, I’d like to increase the flow of such comments over the next few years. I am proud of Invention Machine and our accomplishments.  More importantly, I am grateful to my Invention Machine team, our customers and the industry influencers.  Thank you for your continued support.

Here’s to 2010 and beyond.

Boost Revenue with the Innovation Intelligence Ecosystem

During a recent trip to Europe, I had the opportunity to meet with more than a dozen clients. It was great to listen and learn from executives and engineers on how they are navigating through today’s challenging times and what they are doing and need to do to maintain their innovation edge. It was also gratifying to see how our innovation software is helping drive their innovation initiatives and hear rave reviews about our next technology release.

Now, as I mull over these conversations, two key items rise to the top. First, every company has multiple groups of innovators and each group needs relevant intelligence to drive their innovation tasks. Secondly, every company must have an Innovation Intelligence Ecosystem to drive sustainable innovation and revenue. Let me explain.

The innovation community

Global companies have multiple communities of innovators. In most, about 10-20 percent of innovation workers are master innovators who focus on driving disruptive innovation and strategic innovation initiatives. These projects include designing new products to increase competitive-edge, redesigning existing products to cut costs or identify new markets to drive revenue. This small group of scientists and engineers takes full advantage of advanced innovation technologies.

The second group consists of every day innovators who work on smaller innovation tasks, ranging from solving problems for customers and resolving field situations to researching competitor landscapes and ways to reuse existing technology. In addition to engineers and scientists, they could also be members of new business development, strategic planning and competitive analysis teams. This group of every day innovators represents 70-80 percent of employees, and while they may not make headlines, their innovation ensures their companies’ success.

Collectively, both master and every day innovators are responsible for maintaining a company’s innovation edge. In order to drive optimal success and help the community of innovators do their jobs effectively, each individual needs access to the right intelligence. Precise innovation intelligence can validate concepts upfront and help them deliver the right products the first time as well as solve every day problems faster.

Precise intelligence is the heart of innovation

To knowledge-empower these innovation communities, every company should design an Innovation Intelligence Ecosystem^TM – a framework for delivering precise and critical information from a variety of sources that lead to increased productivity. Internal innovation intelligence can come from legacy product design, best practice and customer usage while external content includes competitive intelligence, technology trends and scientific theories. Giving the innovation communities access to such critical information empowers them to deliver on strategic and every day innovation tasks and initiatives effectively.

Let me give you an example. One of our life sciences customers recently reported that by using Invention Machine Goldfire to drive their Innovation Intelligence Ecosystem, the engineers reclaimed more than 20 percent of their time, effectively increasing productivity by more than 30 percent. Invention Machine’s innovation platform allowed the engineers to devote more time to revenue-generating activities and deliver more products to market, faster.

Drive revenue with Innovation Intelligence Ecosystem

By knowledge-enabling the innovation community with an effective Innovation Intelligence Ecosystem, a company can successfully:

• increase productivity and cut development costs
• drive and sustain a continuous innovation process
• design cutting-edge products repeatedly and
• increase growth, revenue and market share.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on creating and supporting an Innovation Intelligence Ecosystem. Do you think it will help boost and sustain productivity, innovation and market share?