IP - Innovation in Practice

Website runs without internet..Trim the most important function or resource

2012-01-21T02:14:00.000-08:00

Ok; this is for those who follow South Indian films and also know the "super star" in the Tamil movie industry, Rajinikanth. Do Google about him to know his super star power (in movies) and read some PJ's about him. But this is interesting, and not a joke, that his website www.allaboutrajni.com runs when there is no internet (a very simple solution technically)

Do we need Doctor or IFR of a Doctor

2012-01-15T10:29:00.000-08:00

Every year CES Las Vegas has something interesting for people like me would love to use for innovation examples . Whether they use TRIZ to come out with products like that or not, we get to show some of the TRIZ techniques using them as examples. This year CES 2012 coverage had a lot about the health care products that will reach to mass consumer base very soon. While the idea isn't really new and path breaking, the innovation is definitely that this product will reach to the massess or anyone with an iPhone. See the video here

Vinod Khosla wrote something about this in TechCrunch. Not sure he had a chance to see these products before he wrote this article, but looks like he was inspired by the product similar to the one above.. Read yourself here

Coming to the TRIZ usage: Do we need Doctors or Algorithms; or, what is the Ideal Final Result (IFR) of a Doctor -

- No disease at all: Probably will never happen even if it is possible. The desease market is a multi billion dollar business

- Automatically cure the diseases without any medicines: Solution is probably brewing somewhere in a research lab

- The next IFR for a doctor - No doctor, like the one with flesh and blood, but still help me with the diagnosis, and help me to cure.

So, are we getting there, to the IFR of no Doctor, but a Dr. A?

2011 posting - No, I'm not dead!

2011-12-27T15:50:00.001-08:00

No; I’m not there yet, to do one posting per year, and everyone waiting for that one post. This is to make sure that I’m not dead, and still alive and lived through with all that bruises in 2011. As part of my reflection of the year went by, I noticed that I didn’t have a posting about a subject that I consider making me mentally stable. 2011 was a turbulent year in my life, lot of uncertainties, wrong decisions, being in the wrong place at a wrong time, but great learning and making me more matured in thinking, taking decisions with mind and heart.

The year went by for me with lot of activities outside TRIZ, but with some flavors of innovation. I have got the first hand experience in consulting, customer engagement and of course being an evangelist in the innovation space in the area I worked.

But, there were some interesting news on TRIZ from the industry perspective; the TRIZ Journal went down, there was a rise in innovators trying to learn more about TRIZ, and may be blessing in disguise, but a passionate group collaborated and created a diverse platform called Continual Improvement Lab after the demise of TJ, and the new activities in TRIZ India like podcast series on TRIZ. Thanks to friends and supporters for making all these possible in a difficult year and I’m fortunate being part of this.

Looking forward – I definitely see innovation activities embrace more from TRIZ, and there will be a new S-curve in 2012. I personally see myself in doing more innovation activities in the year to come and some new stuff as blogs, initiatives, writing etc.

Until then, very happy new year to everyone, and looking forward to learn and share new things.!

Resource Furniture: Physical Contradictions at work

2010-09-11T23:40:00.000-07:00

The concept isn't new. The IKEA of world has done it a while back, and the classic TRIZ has examples of same from Japan. But, this video is an interesting one, shows different options, and apart from all, the beauty associated with it, and for us, good examples of TRIZ techniques.

Physical Contradictions are considered as closest point of a completely new invention according to TRIZ. Once we identify the physical contradictions, a new paradigm of innovation is emerged. Here in this case, the contradiction at high level can be defined ad, want vs don't want, or need that huge table vs don't need that huge table. The solution is then segment in time and in space. Watch the video here

First TRIZ India Conference

2010-07-30T23:12:00.000-07:00

The first TRIZ India summit was concluded yesterday and a fabulous beginning for all of us in India to be part of the global TRIZ map. Along with other International TRIZ conferences (MATRIZ, TRIZCON, Japan TRIZ Summit, ETRIA, Iberia, Korean TRIZ Summit), TRIZ India is going to be a yearly event from now on.

The idea of a TRIZ India conference started sometime in 2007 when we launched TRIZ India forum. Navneet, Karthik, and I discussed a TRIZ conference in India over several cups of Coffee’s and different ways of doing it. After we moved to this platform, the discussion continued, Bala, Shankar, Murali et all contributed with more ideas, different concepts. But finally it all happened with Karthik and Navneet's timely intervention with Nispana, a Business Information Service company, and their vast connection with several companies in India, and TRIZ experts around the world. I must congratulate them for making this event a grant success within a very short span of time.
Lot of new revelation for me from this conference, and first and profound is
- “There are more TRIZ thinking and experimentation is happening in India” than we all know. Looks like the companies around here are more like Korean’s, not letting people know that they are doing it.
- TRIZ for software is the favorite subject for most, but many think TRIZ is all about contradictions and evolutions, and cannot be applied to software. I hope to see some interesting case studies emerging next time with several other techniques being used for software.
- Patent and TRIZ – I see a strong connection (or interest?) of patents and TRIZ in India. While this is ok, because TRIZ is being used there, the approach may not be good for long term. As Isak said, TRIZ is the technology for innovation, and the TRIZ technology has several sub-system in it, better to make use of them more of them. Using with patents may dilute the overall TRIZ way of thinking
- There is two generation of people seeing TRIZ in substantially different ways. I hope to see a convergence in their thinking to create something unique for Indian innovation
- TRIZ is part of several boutique innovation consulting companies, and there are several of them mushrooming up.
- TRIZ for software is definitely an interest to India. Software systems are not like any other evolving systems, and it has certain characteristics unique to it. They way we define the software system has lot to do with the super-system around it, and application of TRIZ should start from there. Few from the audience repeatedly mentioned no software innovation is happening, and gave couple of examples on Aircraft evolution etc. But, if we look around, there is nothing out there without any software in it, and without the “software innovation” no new technological system is evolving now. Now to apply TRIZ in software; look at the resources, like what are the resources around your current system for you are writing software, which will come in play at the right time if we effectively utilize it. An external memory card in a mobile phone is a resource for the main kernel software, and a piece of software code can do wonders by effectively utilizing that “free” space within the card. Now, what are the contradiction when you start using that available resources, how does the system interact when we “remove” an existing piece of code, how does the software can test by itself by looking at the harmful functions.. the list can go on. TRIZ for software is perhaps a best set of innovation tool kit I can think about.
- One of our idea using TRIZ community to solve problems were appropriately told by Murali and he asked the audience about their interest in participation. Well, we are not talking about any “paid” services here, but the best way to learn TRIZ is to experiment by applying in various problems. There are plenty of problems around us, common to many, and we would like to consider them applying TRIZ to it. We have TRIZ experts from all around the world, and they are willing to help us. Isak offered his help to apply TRIZ for a common problem in our society. I will be starting a new forum here to start this very soon.

As Ellen mentioned at the end of the conference, I’m starting the post conference discussion here. I look forward your contribution and add your points, make this a discussion thread.

More details and live blog, do visit http://trizindia.org

Light weight Vs heavy weight

2010-02-17T10:44:00.000-08:00

I decided to be fit this year and reduce my personal carbon footprint by introducing a bicycle in my daily life. I spent more money (considering this will be a worthy, onetime investment) than I would spend in a high class fitness center for this bicycle. This one is an imported bicycle, weighing about 5 -8 Kg (I heard there are cycles weigh just about 5 Kg!), and attracts lot of attention when I ride :)

As we all know, the reduced weight is an important aspect of racer bike to provide enough comfort, speed, modularity etc, but the reduced weight is also a big problem in India for the high end cycle consumer, and may be in many other countries. Here is why;

I want to use this cycle for all my local travels, including going to shops, going to restaurants for my dinner etc. But, I’m really afraid to take the cycle for anything other than a morning fitness ride so that I don’t have to “park” anywhere. I’m afraid of the theft if have I parked, even after locking the rear wheel as usually done; the reduced weight means even a 10 year old boy can lift the cycle and simply walk away!

One obvious option is that I lock with a long chain, but we need some fixed, “intermediary” object to do that. This is the common solution available in some countries, but the super-system (government, perhaps?) has provided the options.

Well, this is not my own problem by the way. I did a small search including the shop I purchased this. Interestingly, all the high end bicycle consumers are not using their cycles as much as they would like due to this reason. The bicycle industry is in India is growing. Unlike in the past, there are bicycles available for USD 4000.00 (costs more than a Tata Nano) and interestingly there are buyers (any bicycle above USD 500 will have a lead time of 3 weeks) for these varieties.

Other obvious solutions are :
- Encourage government to provide parking areas for bicycles, including the "fixed, intermediary" option to lock it : About changing the system
- Dismantle the parts and take away the small parts with you, without which the cycle is not usable. Still, not sure..
- Encourage people around where I park the cycle to keep an eye on :) Use the free resources around me..
- Insurance coverage for bicycles: One company in India is already providing this for high end cycles, but at a premium, and nowhere close to the 10% of the cost

Looking though the sub-system contradiction: I want a light weight cycle(for all the good thing I mentioned above) Vs I want the cycle to be heavy (So that no simple lifting is possible). There are more contradictions we can talk about, at sub-system, system, and super-system. What do you think are the contradictions, and solutions?

I also shared this problem with my TRIZ friends, and here is an interesting illustration of TRIZ applied by Dr. Ragunath.

In fact you cannot have a meaningful system contradiction with improving parameter being (weight of moving object) and worsening parameter being (weight of the stationary object) as the contradiction matrix for this is empty!

If OTOH you read the classical TRIZ books you will find similar problems about ships to be light & heavy at different times and the solution being filling in/emptying out of sea water into the buoyancy chambers in the hull. This is separation in time principle for the resolution of this physical contradiction. Assuming that the weight of the bicycle does not change when it is moving or when stationary (except for your weight :) ), what other parameters are there to conflict resolution?

if you forget the fact that heaviness is insurance against theft, what worsening parameter do you map theft to? Loss of substance :)? I used to attend college in Canada where lots of students come cycling. They used to detach their seats and front wheels and bring along with them to the class leaving only the frame and back wheel chained! The fear there was people used to steal the detachable parts of the bike :(

Probably people won’t steal what is not a whole bike (?)

If you think of the worsening parameter (due to reduced weight of the (stationary)cycle – param 2) as Object Affected Harmful Factors (param 30), you get the following principles as applicable:

2 : Taking out

19 : Periodic Action

22 : Blessing in Disguise

37 : Thermal expansion

Do you take out the valuable parts of a cycle to avoid its theft?

Do you periodically peek to check if anybody is near the bike? Or employ someone to watch it? Can’t think of blessing in disguise and thermal expansion principles here.

Is potential theft of a light-weight cycle an object generated or object affected harmful effect? OTOH if you take the worsening parameter to be param 31 – object generated harmful factors you get the following principles:

35 : Parameter Changes

22 : Blessing in Disguise

1 : Segmentation

39 : Inert Atmosphere

If the bike is so flexible that it can be rolled up and pocketed then may be parameter changes works.

Inert atmosphere - is it a benign environment where you leave the bike without worry of theft? Or is it that you don’t worry if it is stolen – like you cantrack it through GPS? Looks last solution is feasible but expensive than insurance? Even when one insures, the insurer would like to track, right?

Future of software testing - looking through the 9-Windows

2010-01-06T09:54:00.000-08:00

Many of you might know that I've been "testing" for a long time, not just for the daily bread, but perhaps it is a natural trait for someone like me. Don't get me wrong even if you don't know anything about "software/hardware testing" when I said testing. I really meant "testing"; as in testing the salt is OK in your cooking, testing breaks before you start the car, testing the shirts are ironed ok and on. Well, I test all that I mentioned above subconsciously, and also (used to) test consciously to make sure everything ok before we deliver a new application to our customer for the company I work for.

Ok, I kinda dragged on myself: the topic here is about future of software testing. In my new capacity in the new organization, I really felt the need of constructing a 9-Windows of software testing, which is really obvious for many passionately work in the testing domain. This piece was an outcome of a discussion with my friend explaining him about testing work. The context was future of software testing (actually the entire Information technology product testing). What is the Ideal Final Result of software testing? Our discussion revolved around this, and for the better illustration of this post, I have depicted it as in the following diagram.

The technique here is pretty simple, called 9-Windows or “system operator”. This is a classic tool used in the systematic innovation framework to break our PI (Psychological Inertia) and help us thinking beyond the “system”. You would know this better if I mention “Out of the box” thinking. Yes, this is a systematic way to think “Out of the box”; the initial “box we are in” is the center window, or our present system. That would be anything we are trying to think, in my case it was about “Software testing”.

However, the systematic aspect of this out-of-the-box thinking is adding the “time” and “space” frame to the central theme, and I looked at the “Past”, and “future” of software testing. I used the “time” window of a decade + few years “past”, the time I started my career as a software tester, and looked at the “future” 5 years from now. The space around our current box is what is inside the box below, generally named as “sub-system”; for the software testing, I have thought about the skill set, tools, techniques, what we do, how we do etc., and we are always part of a “super-system”, in this case software testing is part of a bigger super-system, IT Service industry, and the IT industry is part of another super-super-system, the “Industry”.

I got a clear picture about the evolution of software testing after drawing this 9-Windows subsequent to our discussion. Did I really have to spend time to think what is in each of the windows (as in the picture)? Probably not, because every time I read a new article (such as a new IDC report talking about the 2010 automation tool market is $1.8 Billion), hear something, or absorbing a piece of information from wherever, I’m out of the “system” box, and subconsciously developing a 9+ windows. But, the process is not systematic until I draw a 9-Windows like this, especially for a situation when I need information from buried neurons somewhere in my head!

Coming back to the topic of interest:- Software testing today is a multi-billion dollar business. As in any other IT service industry, the software testing industry has opened up the ancillary industry of “automated testing tools”, and today we don’t talk about software testing without automation. But, how many of us are still trying to click the UI’s in different combination to find bugs as we did a decade back? A smaller population of smart testers are emerging today equipped with the knowledge of these automation tools, but unfortunately they are still known as the “Testers” instead of a “Programmer/Developer” tag, because they actually program to test. The testers like me still on the other side of the fence shouting with a slogan, developers cannot be good testers. Looks like an interesting contradiction…

The 9-Windows here is my view, and the future is what I see as the “Ideal Final Result” of me as a software tester, that I will not test software. As in the original meaning of Ideal Final Result (Read my previous post), IFR for software testing is “NO SOFTWARE TESTING”, because the super-system is evolving faster than we think, and lot more intelligence has been added there, so that the machines can do many activities we do today, including auto-fix if there is a bug.

Fortunately we will still have to “TEST” something in future, because the IFR of no-software-testing does not exist (at least now) if we apply the IFR framework to this;
Q. What is the IFR for “Testing?”
- No testing, or self testing, or auto testing, auto correction
Q. What & why is it stopping us to achieve the “NO TESTING?”
- Perhaps products are developed by someone sitting in the central box (of a 9-Windows) without thinking the super-system and the future, so as long as the future is evolving (Including changes in the business landscape), we are guarantee to have defects, and someone else should find the…
- Self testing is already a possibility and there are many products being built with “self testing” and “self fix” feature. So, as a tester, our future is not as bright as today being a “typical” testing engineer
Q. How can we overcome the stopping factor?
- Test the “person” developing the software, so that they think through a 9-Windows, design and develop a product suitable for today and future Built in Quality?

So, looks like my future is “brain(ware) testing”

New year and new stuffs. Spirit is alive!

2010-01-05T07:57:00.000-08:00

Hello Friends,

I was off from this blogosphere for more than a quarter. I was certainly not exile, just that this private blog took a back seat due to all other activities, including the "reflection" phase of my own life!

Lot of good thing happened during this time period; I started TRIZ India group a not for profit group with couple of my friends aiming at a "facebook" touch to the way we can learn and share innovation experiences. Within a short time we are over 170 members strong, many TRIZ gurus around the globe. Thanks to all my friends and innovation enthusiastic to make this a good start.

Lot of contents, discussions, blogs and still going strong. It looks like we will soon have a TRIZ India conference as soon as we get some basic sponsors.

I also started working with other well known TRIZ colleagues on the board of TRIZ Journal editorial panel. Lot of articles for review and re-review. I'm so honored to be part of this as the learning by doing is just amazing!

Then, on the personal front, I decided it is better to be with someone more confident in my capabilities by just "knowing" me than someone who knows me very well, and experience, but perhaps felt that doesn't give any value to them. So, I moved to this new organization offered me an interesting role. Just completed 45 days period and there are lot to tell about that, including whole bunch of "management" contradictions. Great people and I learned the best way to do innovation is not talk about innovations!

So, gone is the year of "the dice in the casino", highly unpredictable for many, good for some, disappointing for mother earth (Flopenhagen!) manufacture of "pink" sheet.

Hope the new year (Or decade? I have already started an argument on this..) will bring more systematic thinking among people, no corporate blunders, creating new base for innovation and inventions (Lot of things are going to change, at least technologically) and a very creative thinking year.

New posting is to follow here :)

Introducing contradictions in businesses - Is that a conscious strategy?

2009-09-24T05:45:00.000-07:00

A car that is capable of reaching half the speed of a jet cruising at 30K ft... So, we have the world's first fastest production car, Aero costing over half a million dollar available in the Indian market. (My average speed of driving here is 14 kmh and on highway at 55kmph). This recent news here in India tempted me to check out some of the fatest car available and found not just this one, but this entire list.

What is intriguing me is the thinking behind a company manufacturing and the customers buying the fastest car; why would someone buy a car with a speed which normally can be driven only at the Nevada desert or in the Wind tunnel for a "function" (Speed @ 254 mph) they can't normally achieve on the public road other than the initial 0-60 seconds?

I can't force myself to think that any auto company for that matter could have ignored the fact about the road condition, speed limit (legal requirements anywhere in the world, except probably on the Autobahn in Europe), before commercializing. I agree that several of them are iconic brands, and are made to order, and there are customers ready to wait for 6 months after writing a check of this amount.

My question here is, are companies consciously introducing contradictions for some benefit? If yes, what are the benefits? How do company sustain by introducing a contradiction, not the solution?

To make my point little clear, here is a possible contradiction in this particular situation.

- A car that can run at 254mph Vs Road condition to accommodate that speed, legal requirements for driving at this speed

My interpretation on TRIZ terms

- Speed Vs Ease of operations/object affected harmful

What are your thoughts?

Laws of technology trends not necessorily always used for a need

2009-09-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

Trends of any technology system is not random; any system we see around us can be mapped to the pattern of 9 technology trends defined by Altshuller. One such trend says that any system will evolve from the current rigid state to the more flexible state, or known as Dynamization trend. You cand find several examples of such trends around you, and the classic example is the keyboard as in the figure below.

The beauty of a trend like this is that we can predict the future of any system towards a flexible structure. Be it a mobile phone (remember the Morph concept from Nokia), a ruler, Television, and the list can go on..

So, here is a real application of this trend on a "pencil". I happened to see this with my nephew few days back. I don't know whether this is a great innovation, or a failed innovation. Looking at this example, and how difficult for him to write using this, I realize that we first identify every possibile ways a system can move to the next and identify "what makes sense" for providing value to the customer. (When I say value, I mean the functionality without any harm)

This pencil is really flexible and as you can see it can be rolled like plastic wire. However there is no way anyone could use this for the actual function of a pencil, writing. Look at the picture below how he is trying to use this pencil on my request.

12 Windows for a PM with 6 Faithful serving men

2009-08-26T05:49:00.000-07:00

For the last couple of days, I was attending a workshop on Project Management (yes you heard it right). I wanted to brush up my PM knowledge after working as a “consultant” for few years, and also look at the new dimension of effective PM using systematic thinking methods, especially simple TRIZ tools. I set my expectation before attending this program that the Project Management Body of Knowledge would have embraced something different to say the PM BOK (Body of Knowledge) is evolving, and the session is going to teach me something new, such as using techniques for effective Project Planning. Unfortunately, it was nowhere close to my expectation.

In the last couple of years we have witnessed the increasing complexity of uncertainty in the existence of a business, collective social knowledge for a consumer to change the business decisions of a company within the span of a dusk and a dawn, and finally how has it impacted the people delivering innovative solution, questioning their own “existence” on a project in the helm of these external developments. Naturally, these super-system developments have the undulate effect in a Project Management activity, and without doing something new, I think Project Management will still be the most challenging activity with a success ratio ticking to the top of % charts.

Considering this “evolution gap” in the PM BoK viz-a-viz the external business scenario, I was trying to conceive the concepts to make a Project Manager's life simple during the workshop. Major part of the “PM thinking” has been involved in planning and monitoring; in the true sense of today, Planning and Firefighting. Despite a good Project Plan, PM’s are in the firefighting mode in at least 80% of the projects being executed today.

Let’s look at the planning; when and where do we start planning a project is highly dependent on the context. The context of the services offered by your company, the context of your customer business needs, the context of your people involved in, and most factually, after the contract signing. I think we aren’t late to start a project plan after signing the contract, but what could have happened by then is the amount of relevant project information transacted before the contract signing is no longer within the reach of a PM, and even if they are, mostly ambiguous. As a PM you have a clean canvas and start from there. How effective the planning could then be?

Most often, the project planning concentrates on the execution model of “what I know I know” perspective. “What I know I don’t know” and “what I don’t know I don’t know (or have no clue about it” are the place holders in your assumptions and dependencies, and the success of your project may be decided by that.

Is there a way to identify “what we do not know well” for a PM during the planning stage? Apart from seeking inputs from your surroundings (people and artificats around you, if any), what should be your thinking model? I have often heard that a Good Project Manager is someone who knows that s/he can not predict the future. I think a good PM toady should not only assume that the future is unpredictable, but also identify the plane of unpredictability and direction of the evolution from today to the future. Unfortunately, we are too busy to think outside that “project” box and writing a project plan with what we know, and think about the operational activities and outcomes.

You can also download this as a PDF version (to read the questions inside the windows) from TRIZ Community discussion forum here

So, this is what I’m experimenting now, using a 1-2 (actually 12) Windows of thinking for Project Planning, a simple, systematic thinking technique to look at the plane of unpredictability of a project.
(You don’t necessarily need a “Window” for Project Planning, because in this stage (planning) of a project you don’t even have a “foundation” ready :).

So, you have noticed the above 12 windows have nothing but questions. May be, ’Q’ is the ‘P’- lanning, if you have questions, you have the answers, or someone, somewhere will or have the answers for your questions. Any problem related to any project is that there were only “Answers” before we started the project, and no Questions. Do you really need the above 12 windows to ask questions? Well, believe me, we need. As an adult, we don’t really like questions, and if at all we ask questions, we mostly ask questions for TODAY.

The above lists of questions are certainly nowhere close to the actual number of questions a PM should ask. If you have the context of your project in the “System-Present”, you have the right question for PAST, PRESENT, and indeed FUTRE. Do your thinking and let me know what window you as a PM would like to OPEN/CLOSE?

Solution for the last mile problem - Successful innovation ideas

2009-08-13T23:56:00.000-07:00

The success and failure of innovation is overly discussed. Just do a google (or binging) around, and you will be directed to zillions of articles with advices and experiences listed out with "n" factors of success and failure of innovations. However, have you ever noticed the success of innovation some time is really dependent on solving the “last mile problem”?

Consider the innovations happening in the alternative fueled cars, especially Electric Vehicles. Have you really seen any successful implementation of this innovation benefiting to the mass consumer base? While there are new ideas being implemented to store electricity, light weight materials, high end technologies under-hood, the EV's are still not there on road even 0.5% of the gas guzzlers. Is that because we don't have enough success in making an EV? Perhaps not; every year, any famous car shows around the world, there are at least 3 new EV cars are being displayed, and the cost is really coming down. Yet the manufactures, Nissan of the world are perfecting their cars trying to provide higher mileage at one charge.

When Ford asked some help from Edward deBono to improve their market share, the idea he had was Ford buying parking lots around the country and allow only Ford car owners to park. I don't know whether Ford really implemented this idea. What if the EV manufacturers do some lateral implementation instead of trying to perfect their solution, and provide the "last mile solution"?

Here is a company in Israel doing the same, Better Place. Do visit their website, and learn what they are doing. This is really a simple business idea thinking at the super-system level (while the manufacturers are thinking at the sub-system level perfection) and providing solutions to the customer. Draw a simple 9-Windows on this, and here is my interpretation.

The future part of this 9-Windows is intentionally left blank. If Better Place can look at the last mile problems of making EV cars successful, the future, super-system thinking should help someone to create new business ideas.
What are your ideas?

Cosnumer trend and technology innovation

2009-07-24T01:48:00.000-07:00

I have always wondered whether consumer trends push technology innovation or technology pushes consumer trends. Whatever I have learned so far from books/articles never proved neither of them. Last year, I had this opportunity to interact with a Professor from Indiana University, Pennsylvania, and a common ground was established to take this thought further. Professor shared his research details and also a survey he is planning for to verify the facts. Finally we have launched this survey and collecting inputs from people all over the world. Here is a link to this survey.

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/129861/jbmu4

I look forward from my readers to take this survey and help us complete this research. I will share the results as soon as we have them.

Innovation by "taking out"

2009-07-16T23:46:00.000-07:00

This is a blog entry that was in the draft mode for more than 2 years!. I wanted to write about new innovations by not adding something new, but "taking out" what is already there, sighting the iPhone as the example . Today, this article from CNBC, Why The Best Ideas Have Something Missing triggered me to complete this post

Below is my earlier verbatim
Innovation in future technology products seem to have interesting pattern. A new product, or revolutionary technology is being developed by applying the "taking out" principle, principle # 2. When Apple introduced iPhone, what struck me was the new design, missing a very important element of basic cell phone we have seen since beginning, the key pad!!

In this article, highlighting successful innovation with "doing less" (I would still emphasize "taking out) with examples from companies around the world, and also shares the cognitive aspects of human being to get in to this thinking. While I couldn't find an immediate connection with the examples and the rest of the article quoted from Matthew E. May, author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing blog, what is striking here is the "break through thinking" by really "breaking" the things.

PIA - 25 Ideas

2009-07-05T06:35:00.000-07:00

In the early days of our class we discussed about generating wild, creative ideas without wearing the judgment cap, naturally letting the wild ideas flow within a short period of time (exactly speaking about 3 mts). Here goes mine.. :)

- Self organizing household items. Including sofa, tables, chairs, book shelf, clothes

- Color changing car body paint - Driving down in snow, changes to black, depends on mood.
- A pedaled cycle below your table to exercise while you are at work, and also power my laptop
- What if we all could have have a replica sitting at the university premises and attending this course. Can I outsource my learning to someone?
- Tasting tablet. Eat any bland food with the taste tablet. So, take your pad thai tablet and bland noodles..
- A stock market for people to invest in their & other's emotions. So, everybody is happy...
- TV that follows you wherever you go.. How about TV with tyres fit, steering wheels. If I go to kitchen, the TV follows me, so that I don't miss that Cricket match..
- Perception filter. Filter the people perception about a situation
- Open top in the plane at 34K feet. Real star gazing is possible there
- Unlearning tool. How about an unlearning tool, so that I don't burden my mind with new knowledge
- Outsource my fat burning to some people in Ethiopia (Well, assume I have lot of fat..) Blessing in disguise..
- Creativity drug - Take a small dose of this, and there flows your creative juices
- Vegetable shops selling not vegetables, but help you grow the same at your house
- Open patents - Anybody can use it and make money
- Social networking for your pets
- Vertical travel. Don't take a flight to Hong Kong from NY. Go all the way up above the earth's gravitational force and stay there, and since earth is rotating, Hong Kong will be below after sometime, and you land there
- Computer that emits pure oxygen for your breath. You don't need an Oxygen parlor
- Freezing horn - To teach a lesson to the jay walkers in this part of the world.
- I stay still, wherever I'm supposed to go comes to me - Office, holiday spot, pub, restaurant...
- Bank that keeps your ideas. And they pay you interest for your ideas
- Selectively listening gadgets. You want to filter unwanted things and listen only what is interesting to you
- Fast forward meetings
- 1200 Sqft house on 5 foot. Build a tall pillar on the 5 foot, and construct house of top of that. Easy to say I can live right there on the Time square..Reality meltdown is ruled out..

PIA - Where do you feel most creative?

2009-07-03T05:41:00.000-07:00

This is another discussion we have had during our course.

Environment plays a critical role in many people's creative thinking. Some of us get energized at the beach, while others prefer a comfy chair in a darkened room. To start our journey together, we would love to know what your ideal creative space looks like?

My answer

While I strongly agree the environment plays an important role in our creative thinking, it is a myth that creative thinking is a spark influenced by the environment. Having said that I get creative ideas when I think I need to be creative irrespective of the place, but I'm good at creative thinking while discussing with friends on the subject other than the business. I feel this is due to the nature of association I can make with my problem context and the discussion point which is completely irrelevant.

When I conduct the innovation workshop and facilitation, I like to keep the environment colorful by full of colored charts around, giving them gizmo to play, which intern makes things little creative.

Putting Ideas into Action - Attempt to define creativity

2009-07-02T06:46:00.000-07:00

The first part of our class Putting Ideas into Actions, we started with some basic questions about the creativity and our definitions of creativity. The discussion forum is too big to summarize here, because the class was so fired up to give their perspectives. However, there are some interesting points I wanted to capture. Since I can not copy paste the discussion from others, I'm focusing on certain questions from them and my answers for that.

“If creativity is all about problem solving, then does the term "creative problem solving" not involve a redundancy in the sense that all problem solving is, by definition, creative?” What do you think?- A very interesting question that I really liked because I was reading about the cognitive journals few days before.

When I started a full time role to help people think creative, this is a dimension I tried to understand, and have read and researched little bit. Finally, the literature available out there slowly started to drift me in to another area of "Cognitive psychology".

It is said that our human brain is wired in such a way to look at problems as the "flight or fight". Even if the problem is so close to us that we need a solution, our conscious state of mind still want to fly away from there. In this dilemma, we generate solutions by putting least effort by pulling the mental model (a pattern of thinking) that is easily matching the criteria of "flight".These solutions are certainly not creative and can not be called as creative. However, the moment we start "fight" for solutions, we would start experimenting with different thinking patterns (mental models), involved exercising more neurons and generate creative solutions.

Summarizing, I think creative problem solving is a phase after we flush out our mind with the easily accessible solutions.

Putting Ideas to Action: Approach to "creative consciousness" in day to day life - Part 1

2009-07-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

Creative consciousness - I don't know a phrase like this exists, and make any sense, but I found this to be catchy. :)

Ok, what I really want to talk about is, what are the creative ways we can tune our mind to have that consciousness for observing our surroundings; despite the fact that ~95% of our neuron activities (thinking) are related to the day to day problems, such as thinking about the report to be sent on a Friday evening, weekend plan to meet your friends, thinking about spending time on this creativity course etc?

My guess is that this course is really helping all of us to condition our mind to exercise the right part of our brain for creative solutions, problem identification, and asking questions etc. However, there are so many other aspects of our day to day life and thinking overrules the right brain thinking, and at times we may completely ignore something very important passing by us because we are not consciously thinking that "we need to observe", or "I need to ask a question".
I could probably carry a check list wherever I go and ask myself, "Look around you and identify 5 things you haven't seen before", or "Identify 10 customers purchasing what type of vegetables". This will work beautifully if you are doing an ethnography study, but not very well in your personal life taking your family out for a picnic, because this requires an effort in our mind, and we may not enjoy our picnic at all.

On the other hand, what if we have a "creative consciouseness" switch that I can simply turn it on before I go to that picnic, and then "somebody" else within me doing this job of asking the question, observing the surroundings? Since that somebody is my mind and as said above, requires effort to do that consciousness thinking, what can we do to make it effortless, more fun?

Making use of Twitter for idea generation

2009-06-29T23:59:00.001-07:00

What I have started as "getting to know Twitter" few months back is now more than just that I have "got to know" ; with over 100 updates, few followers, I feel Twitter is an excellent platform for so many things, for me, something that I really love; idea generation. If you are someone like me really interested in generating wild ideas, asking weird questions and keep your creative thinking active and a positive frame of mind (generating ideas would keep you in the positive thinking frame,– this is not my theory, but study says -for more details on this, check out MIT Cognitive Neuro Journal), Twitter could be a sounding body for you. You could also be satisfying your subtle “ego” (by ego what I mean is that "itching" feeling that you are the only one “hearing” that idea) by “sharing” your ideas to somebody else by assuming at least 10% of your followers have read it.

However, we need to break some myths about the general consensus about ideas, such as the interpretation of an idea, value of an idea, environment etc.

Myth 1 – My idea(s) can not be shared to anyone that I don’t know or trust.

- Actually, you might end up starting a business if you simply share an idea to a group of people, most probably in the same wavelength, because your major followers are following you on Twitter due to the subject of interest. You could end up having someone building on top of your idea, asking questions, and connecting you to a venture capital. Even if someone simply copies an idea and do something own their own, be proud about that fact, it was “your idea”

Myth 2 – What if my idea is the best idea, and I share in a public forum, and the value of that idea is not enjoyed by me.

- Best ideas are generated by lazy people (according to my friend Bala), apart from that, if you generate an idea, and you consider it as the best idea, you would never generate another “better” idea. So, do consider tweeting an idea (read as sharing) is flushing out the current flow of ideas, so you generate another one.

Myth 3- The reason I call my idea is an idea, because I can interpret that very well, visualized that very well, and can talk about that very well. How do you expect me to share that in 140 characters for someone sitting somewhere and interpret the same way I do?

- If you could write your idea in 140 characters for you to understand it very well, consider majority of people out there could do the same thing.

- If others are not interpreting the way you had thought of that idea, consider that your idea has left a spark.

Ok, enough fundas. I’m not selling Twitter here, even you feel I do, Twitter is still not making money by you tweeting.

If you ask me this question, what is in it for me “tweeting” my ideas, well the answer is to cultivate a “creative consciousness” habit. I will explain my fundas of creative consciousness in the next post. So for now, start “Twinking” (I meant start thinking about tweeting J )

Putting Ideas Into Action - Role of creativity in problem definition

2009-06-29T23:02:00.000-07:00

Over the course last few weeks I have learned how to think creative and generating creative solutions by delaying judgement, divergence thinking and the need for convergence thinking from the class I'm attedning, and posted this blog.

As said, it is very important to define the right problem before we move on to the creative thinking and idea generation (so do the delay in judgement, divergence & convergence etc). But, what is your experience of defining a problem?

Despite working as a person helping people innovate in a corporate environment, I often find it difficult to define a perceived problem to the actual problem. It is very hard to convert a problem I get on my hand from the people around me (even some of my own problem), and distilled down to the real root cause of that problem before move on to the ideation phase. I use some of the industry standard techniques like RCA, 5 Why's, Fish bone analysis, and some of the advanced concepts like problem explorer, Ideality thinking, contradiction etc. However, this is always a convergent process and usually tiring for people (I have found people do not enjoy this process very well)

How can we make the problem definition process itself a very creative process? Have you experimented anything, so that people enjoy defining a problem the same way they enjoy generating wild, creative solutions? Do you think it is important to even look at the creativity in the problem definition?

Putting Ideas Into Action...

2009-06-29T03:48:00.001-07:00

This is the title of a new online course I’m attending from the Buffalo State University, NY. For the last 3 years or so, I was talking to Cyndi (Director of Distance Education) and see if I can attend one of their graduate or masters program, but never got materialized. Finally, thanks to Cyndi for inviting me for their first online course on creativity. I’m one among the 30 students from all over the world, understanding a very interesting part of creative problem solving, basic creativity steps, illustrated through very nice videos. Fellow students are from a diversified background, ranging from Art, to teachers, to managers to lawyers, and informative discussions, questions, exercise.

I have their permission to blog some of our discussions, blogs, question we raise, cases we discuss there to my readers, and I will try to pen them here. This course is a proof for me to believe Creativity can be taught!

Innovation facilitator, can you have the cake and eat it too?

2009-06-15T06:04:00.000-07:00

As an innovation facilitator helping people innovate for some time, this question is probably a reality check for myself.

As an innovation facilitator you feel great about working with people using various tools and techniques to generate (great) ideas, reading and researching all over, chiseling the initial set of ideas, building on that, sticking with other, and finally having a list of ideas. End of Part 1. You have the cake now

You send out the list of ideas to the sponsor/owner, or whoever asked you to help him innovate, with the great pride, detailing every step, thought process, and there comes a great email - "Thank You for a wonderful job". - End of Part 2

You are back in your cubicle nation, toying with some of the ideas you had presented to them, and feel convinced they are great by comparing who else is doing similar things and found no one, and write emails to the owner what's going on with ideas we helped generating for him. Lot of emails To, and lot of emails FROM, CC'd to you. - End of Part 3

There comes an email with a detailed spread-sheet - With so excitement, you open that up and find someone working "close" with customer at the location from another high profile department, charging $xxx.00 for hour discussed about the ideas generated by the team and decided the following set of ideas to be implemented. With all the excitement you open the sheet, and learn what an idea our customer would have liked to have 5 years back being planned to be implemented now! And, what an ability to create mash-ups by picking what is relevant and easy to implement- End of Part 4

You say, “nevertheless, they are implementing something”, and keep that email aside, and going on with your life. There comes a call from another building, a lead developer, wanting to meet you to understand the idea. Developer explains the idea being implemented are interpreted by them "like this", and you say in your mind, what an "idea sir-ji", but this is not what you had thought of in the beginning. The lead developer also asks, "There are several other applications do the same thing, should we do something similar?" End of all the parts and rest is history.

Well, this isn't something you are unfamiliar if you are working with an organization, and doing the job as an innovation facilitator. I'm happy with the external innovation consultants that they don't get to know much about the outcome of their great effort which has been invoiced anyway.

Can they, innovation facilitators, still eat the cake without getting kicked out?

Dreaming the dream - Working for a dream company

2009-05-06T01:02:00.000-07:00

We all have dreams; for a professional like me (factors to be considered - my age, passion), one such dream is to work for a dream company. There are few companies I always dream working for in the innovation space. To name some of them IDEO, ?Whatif! Innovation. While it may be difficult to make them consider people like me, I thought there is no harm in trying to get noticed by them. And I did for ?Whatif!, especially because couple of interesting factors.

1- No stupid page, and interface for filling data, educational details, work experience, and everything they would want me to fill but not even read, and also asking me to upload a CV with all that and more information about me.
2- Few questions they asked to understand the candidate better (I assume), but the kind of questions I really enjoy answering.

I thought I should post the questions and answers here for my readers if they would interpret them to understand me.. :)

Q. What is the best idea that you've ever made happen?

My Ans: Made happen = successfully implemented?
Actually nothing! I feel exhilarated generating plenty of ideas for any given situation, but unfortunate that most of them sound crazy for the people hearing me out. Then, I realized, it is better to make them generate the same crazy idea by helping them facilitate thinking using tools and techniques. Second, ideas that I have made it happen may not be the best. There is someone sitting in some corner of the world trying to think, or implementing more “ideal” state of my ideas. However, I can illustrate few ideas that I thought were best (best, because I was in love with those ideas, and helped the stakeholder implemented them winning in some aspects), but later realized there are better solutions in a different domain outside.

Q. If you had a £1m to start a business what would you do?
My Ans: Based on my observation, demographic trends, market data, and analysis, I would invest them (here in India) opening a mobile beauty spa chain (Spa here means beauty treatments). The spa business in India is growing big, but the players are still focusing on opening exclusive outlets in the up-market area of big cities, targeting the rich and super-rich consumers who are ready to spend. However, there is a huge base of middle class families within the city itself not venturing out to the up-market area, but depending on the local beautician, running their show in a converted one room within their house. Few other characteristics of these consumers are:
- Only an average of 2 such places are in the vicinity of 10 Sq Kilometer, makes many consumers (especially housewife) avoiding them.
- At least twice per week visit to a beauty spa for facials, hair trip etc
- Quick visit to a spa for certain occasions, and the best place is not available nearby.
A mobile spa should solve the problem by going to their place with well equipped amenities, well trained, using herbal compound for the customers. An average of 50 customers are expected in an area of 5 Sq Km, spending average of $ 20.00 per visit per day. Each big city could need at least 20 such units to satisfy the customer base.

Q. What brand would you love to get your hands on? What would you do?

My Ans: Major soft drinks (Coca Cola, Pepsi). The consumption of soft drink is considered bad for health, inviting criticism for exploiting water resources. (But, they make lot of money by selling carbonated drink, which means to me that the same guys criticizing are also the big time consumers). Over a period of time these companies have diversified their product portfolio to health drinks, fruit juices, and other similar non carbonated drinking products. They have already created a huge brand in the external super-system of their business, but there is an area not explored outside of their core business competence, potentially huge and appealing market to the people even criticizing them. I would like to take them through that, and give them enough pointers about the life cycle of a product -->service-->experience-->Transformation, and what they can do to move from one to other, and leveraging on their brands to make the new services or products a success.

Q. What keeps you fresh?

My Ans: Talking and thinking about the ideal customer functions. To simplify, thinking about future. (Technology, products, services, consumer behavior, trends…)

Q. What are you really passionate about?
My Ans: Working with a group of people like me to talk about new ideas, exploring places never thought about (many are wild ideas – as in how can we smell cheese while browsing an online food shopping site), creating connections with unrelated things to the context of relevance; work on tough problems with the stake holders and make them realize how creative are they in generating great solutions.

Q. If I was on a 12 hour flight with you what would I love about you? And what would irritate me?
My Ans: My stories and examples learning from unusual sources, such as biomimicry, about systematic innovation; talking about ugly user interfaces, (not just software or consumer appliances, but even the way the services were designed in the flight) micro and macro trends. I may irritate you by fast context switching without giving you any indication about that while talking.

Note: While I guess I was noticed by someone (at least), I couldn't make myself out of that cubicle.. :(

Perceptions and Reality - Learning from Susan Boyle

2009-04-25T04:43:00.000-07:00

Over 100 million people watched this YouTube video of Susan Boyle, a 47 year old singer (she is indeed) after her first appearance on the reality show, Britain’s Got Talent”. I wouldn’t do enough justice to describe her performance, because this is something you should watch/hear and immerse in it. This video and Susan is the talk of the town, and Peter Bregman wrote a wonderful blog on Harvard Business Review about the lessons we can learn from her performance in the Talent Management, and my view is similar here, but more from the psychological aspects, “perceptions”.

Watch this video carefully, and look at the face of judges and audience while she was walking towards the centre of the stage. Frowning, “what in the world is she doing here” kinda look, many probably ridiculing her, and when she said her vision(dream?), singing like Elaine Page (honestly, I had no clue about this great singer until I read more about her after watching this video), the level of sarcasm heightened to the next level with visible body language. Rest is history..

Think about the perceptions we (audience/judges) had created before Susan started singing; how many of us would have actually created a very constructive, positive perception about her and her performance? Frankly, I couldn’t see a face with a warm welcome to her and the anticipation to hear her singing, possibly because of her look, age, background she is coming from, or whatever it may be. Fortunately, here in this case, the negative perceptions didn’t last long, and is obvious from the standing ovation the moment she started singing.

Now think about your manager, subordinates and everyone around you interact in a working environment (I’m selectively forgetting the personal life) and the perceptions, both positive and negative, you have created, and what way it has impacted you, others and your organization.

Perceptions are very delicate state of human mind. When I said, delicate, I meant perceptions can create positive changes, and at the same time can destruct everything if they are negative. In the conscious state of mind, the perceptions guide us to think, and act; the negative perceptions thus are very important and should be handled diligently, because our act may be biased by the negative perceptions we hold, resulting bad relationship with employees, colleagues, managers and other people in our interacting environment, and the outcomes of holding negative perceptions are lack of motivation, reduced productivity, creative thinking, proactive thinking and the list can go on. The good factor though, we have the capabilities to get rid of the bad (negative) perceptions when we realize the value of an individual, may be within seconds, or in few months. However this is an arguable statement. There are people who create negative perceptions and hold on to that forever due to various reasons, and give a blind eye even if the negative perceptions are proven wrong with valuable output. Perhaps a subtle way people call this as “bad chemistry”. In my experience, some of the reasons for people holding negative perceptions may be,

-Intellectual arrogance – Arrogant attitude created by the person who thinks he is an intellect and everything else by others does not make sense, and have a high benchmark created to measure the facts proving the negative perceptions are invalid.
-Wrong packaging & Presenting – The genuine facts to prove the negative perceptions are wrong by the individual are packaged wrongly (not highlighting the “pleasing facts” to others), and presented to others in a wrong environment, and time.
-“Feel good factor” to counter the insecurity
-Influence by external perceptions – Even if the facts are good to break our negative perceptions, an external perception could influence to change this dimension of our thinking

There should be more reasons to it, and feel free to add them.

Now to summarize, this video is an excellent example to make me think not to create immediate negative perceptions about anyone based on their age, look, way they communicate, qualifications, experience etc. See the results, facts before we conclude the negative perceptions and evaluate someone.

Postscript: Truly, this entire article is about my (negative?) perceptions created by looking at the face and body language of the audience and judges before Susan Boyle started singing, that the air in the auditorium was giving a feel as they had written her off right in the beginning.

TRIZ - For and against...

2009-04-17T04:14:00.000-07:00

Few days back, I was revisiting December 2008 BW article on TRIZ. My intention was very clear, to see the reader comments section, and I usually do that to learn from what others have to say. This is interesting, about 43 comments (or I should say discussion thread) from about 10 different people, 6 of them I know very well. I value the reader comments for any interesting subject I read, and my expectation from this section was to see how people perceive TRIZ, helping them in their organization or work, and of course to hear what others have to say against.

While most of them vouched on TRIZ as an effective innovation technique, one stood out here is Yevgeny Karasik, author of Anti TRIZ-Journal. He says he is not against TRIZ, but is against TRIZ-Journal. (I don’t understand what he meant by that anyway)Yevgeny was trying to counter every others favoring TRIZ by asking them to validate how TRIZ helped them to innovate, and at times, seems to me that he was talking through his emotions. By the way, this guy is a real thinker and have several articles published in his website about various TRIZ techniques, and some of them are real complex for me to understand as a novice. Having read through all the 43 comments, I was left wondering asking this question, why do we need to argue whether TRIZ is the real reason for an organization, and as a matter of fact, even as an individual to be innovative?

For human beings, coming up with creative ideas are just innate. If we need to dig deeper in to this fact by analyzing human brain, mental model creation, and cognitive thinking ability, we may get sufficient answers that we are wired in such way to discard the routine patterns and experiential thinking based on certain external influences. I may get a very interesting solution for my problem while I’m out on a vacation sipping a glass of wine or while trekking up on an icy terrain back in Utah (Well, I was there once). Now, can you say that I get those ideas because of TRIZ or Lateral Thinking?

Coming back to the world of reality, human mind is a complex system, and we can’t always, naturally get rid of our routine, pattern based, experiential thinking, so that we get good ideas. And, we certainly can’t wait for the next vacation or trekking to find a solution for the pressing problem I’m facing today. This is what, perhaps the leading thinkers like DeBono, Altshlluer, Osborn and many others have thought, and abstracted what they have found helped them as thinking techniques. Take a look at this site, and you could find 100 such techniques. Is it imperative which technique do you use, or how fast you find a very innovative solution for your problems by breaking your apparent, conventional, and experiential thinking?

I think what we need to understand is that we have a huge knowledge base created by our predecessors based on their experience and experiments. Now, it is up to us to use what we are really interested in, able to conceptualize easily, and also open up our mind, so that we become a better thinker and generate great solutions. For all those favored TRIZ (including me), we may have found TRIZ to be the best tool for thinking, and for those innovators not even heard of TRIZ and may be using any other techniques, because they found their choice of techniques to be the best for their thinking.

Economic impact of increased US savings – Contradiction and opportunities?

2009-04-03T05:35:00.000-07:00

A recent article published by McKinsey (March ’09) quarterly shows this interesting (to me at least) study on the increasing US consumer savings in the last couple of quarters. Well, in a time when we see the bad news all around, the tendency for the rest of us earning are naturally towards saving it for the rainy day ahead. Apparently this article also put some lights on the debt Vs income ratio and justifies the reason behind this savings trend.

However, my interest here is abstracting the contradictions which I think are the contradictions (you may find a different contradiction, which is ok, and good) from the two important stakeholder’s perspective, especially when the economists pointing the reasons behind the recession is the lack of (or reduced) consumer spending, not just limited to buying a new home or car, but down to the spending on their vacations, purchasing goods, and even food.

I, as a consumer, first want to save money to spend; from a business perspective, they like me to spend money to keep me in the job. (So that I can save). An interesting vicious circle and the contradiction may be;

As a consumer – Improve my savings Vs As a business – Reduced spending

If I, as a consumer focus only on the savings today, the existence of the businesses will be in question. They want me to spend, but I’m too concerned about my future if I don’t save.

There is also a physical contradiction for the consumer: I Save Vs Do Not Save – I want to save for the better and make sure that I can survive during this period, but I don’t want to save all my money (or want to spend) to make the businesses thrive so that I have my job!

According to TRIZ, when we are in a contradictory situation, there is an opportunity for innovation without compromising both the stakeholders need. I have no idea how my friends actually “Save” money back there, but presume they save using various financial instruments available, including, but not limited to, stocks, properties, mutual funds, pension funds, and even bank savings. (I may be completely wrong for bank related savings since what we have seen in the last few months of abysmal collapse of banking behemoths could have triggered another new trend in the way people save – Still an opportunity for innovation if you can identify that trend).

Translating the above contradictions in TRIZ terms, you have some thinking principles to brainstorm for ideas. I selected the improvement parameter from the classical TRIZ as “Reliability”, because I can dependent on my savings for securing my future. The obvious worsening parameter to me here is the “harmful side effects generated”, in this case is reduced spending, because I’m keen on saving.

With the following inventive principles, can you generate some ideas for the consumers to save money, and at the same time they spend money so that the businesses can run?
35. Parameter changes
# Change a system’s object’s physical state
# Change the concentration or consistency.
# Change the degree of flexibility.
# Change the temperature.
2. Taking out
# Separate an interfering part or property from an object, or single out the only necessary part (or property) of an object.
40. Composite materials
# Change from uniform to composite (multiple) materials.
26. Copying
# Instead of an unavailable, expensive, fragile object, use simpler and inexpensive copies.
# Replace an object, or process with optical copies.
# If visible optical copies are already used, move to infrared or ultraviolet copies.

You may select another set of improving and worsening parameter to identify more principles to ideate. The quantity of ideas will certainly lead to quality of your end results. Oh, and do not forget to look at the “resources” available to you if you are serious about coming out with some innovations within your business domain.

Ideal Final Interface - What came first, UI or Function?

2009-03-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

The” User Interface” as a technical jargon probably evolved to the extent we are obsessed with any new product is due to the computer industry. However, today, the UI is ubiquitous for all the products we see in the market, and even for services. Indeed a good thing that this is an emergence of a new industry of simple UI designer jobs to cognitive UI designer to UI innovation consulting, and the list goes on.

I was introduced by this book called “Design of Everyday Things” authored by Donald Norman by a friend of mine few years back. I was ignorant the fact that there is such a great amount of work going on in the concept of UI design until I read this book, and my further research on the User Interface arena has really enthralled me about the depth of thinking evolved during the last decade or so. There has been a change in my approach to use a product or service, or as a matter of fact, I started criticizing every UI I come across since then, and nothing satisfied me from the User Interface point of view (including iPod).

I think many of us don’t pay enough attention to the User Interface of a product we use, when the sole purpose behind of using a product/service is to achieve a function to complete my job. As long as the job gets done even with some difficulties, we as a user tend to compromise on the user interface part, with the exception that some UI really sucks that people stop using the product itself. Perhaps this approach of giving importance to the functionality than UI slowly started creating a mental model about the perspective of a UI for me, and every other UI I come across incrementally added to the existing mental model to satisfy with whatever the interface provided to me by the product then on.

I, spending almost 14 hours in front of my laptop loaded with Microsoft Windows and other office products (Excuse me my fellow guys working with Microsoft), intrigued me about this line of thinking, what should have come first, the User Interface or Functionality? Designing a new UI in the traditional approach involves understanding the functionality first, thinking about the end customer, their culture, habit, the customer base, and design a UI to cater the different type of such end customers. However, thinking backward from the user perspective, is there way to design an Ideal User Interface?

If you are an extensive MS Office user for the last 5 years, you can probably understand me and my plight about this lingering thought, what should have come first? Work with office 2003 Power point and the 2007 version; note the differences in the UI. 2007 packed with more functionality, (and I’m happy with that), but the UI to achieve those common functions that were easy in 2003 became so complicated in 2007 version. Although the UI changes in the 2007 version perceived to be like (how the designer of this product perceived may be) they have simplified for the users, could they have designed the UI first for 2007 for adding more functionality?

I asked the same question to a colleague of mine working as a User Experience Lead, and her answer wasn’t surprising. We have always designed the UI for a function that exists. We created the function to satisfy our customer “jobs” and then designed a wrapper around that function to accept input from the user and provide output back to him, known as User Interface. Therefore role of a UI designer then gets in to the level of making the UI attracting (make it flashy?), reducing the complexity of using it, making it simple to operate, and we are done. Further pushing with my agenda of “UI should be first”, my colleague really argued how is it possible to create a UI for a function that do not exist? Fair question, and frankly I didn’t have an answer to back up my thinking. It’s like creating a roof first for a house before the foundation and the wall.
Ok, if we can’t create the UI first for the functionality that does not exist, can we do it other way around, create a function from the UI that I’m working on? To make this possible, can we think about the Ideal user interface? Since every user interface is to achieve some function, can there be an ideal user interface to create an ideal function?

Ideality is a concept within the systematic innovation framework to break the incremental approach in thinking, but looking at the ideal scenario we would like to achieve. In other way, ideality is the result of function achieved without any cost or harm. If we can apply this technique for our UI first issue,

What is my Ideal Final User Interface?

An ideal user interface for me as a customer for any product could be that there is no UI. This may sound hypothetical, but the notion here is to bring an idealistic thinking for the functionality.

I would be happy to have my PowerPoint 2007 without any UI at all, but provide me things as and when I needed to do something. For example, if I want to insert a picture in a slide, all that I need is an insert option (only when I need that) where PowerPoint can point me to the place I will load the image from, and more ideally, automatically bringing the best and suitable image for that slide, insert it, change the orientation etc . Well, now I’m talking to a very intelligent Power Point application by Microsoft, because if it to make my ideal UI a reality, a very new intelligent function should be created. By asking the question “what is stopping Microsoft to provide me an intelligent Power Point feature”, I may be pushing the ball to the technical guy’s court!

Well, ideality does not really exist, so do the intelligent functionality today in the Power Point. Now, if the ideal ideal UI (no UI at all) is not possible, what could be the next IFI (Ideal Final Interface)? Drawing the same Power Point insert example, the next IFI for me should be the insert option UI is so convenient to me that clicking on it would give me a thumbnail view of all “preferred” images, preferably giving me some ratings, also identifying the size, automatically converting them to fit in to my slides etc. Wouldn’t that be possible? I’m dead sure yes ,without possibly a single line of extra code!

The concept of an IFI is more than just for designing the best UI, but also creating a better functionality for the product and overall changing the experience of getting my “job” done as a customer. Now do you agree that UI can come first?

Innovation policy for Obama

2009-03-17T02:07:00.000-07:00

The current economic scenario has triggered several discussions on emphasizing an innovation action plan for Obama administration to revitalize the US (and apparently the world) economy. The recent Business Week article by Thomas D. Kuczmarski proposing a step-by-step innovation action plan for Obama is encouraging at this juncture, because the growth of several other countries around the world has been depended on US innovations. An unbiased view of Kuczmarski’s plan as an “outsider”, and indeed by supporting him for his proposal, the question remaining to me is how the government should rationalize the implementation of this plan when the priority is dealing with the reality at the grass root level problems of unemployment, reduced consumer spending, and over and above the looming negative sentiments leading to a deep recession? Is there a way President Obama can tie the innovation policy to bring the changes immediately that we are looking for, so the action plan for innovation can yield benefit quickly?

In his previous post The 4400, Jack Hipple seeded some excellent thoughts on using the “free resources” effectively. Taking the cue from there, some wild ideas to ponder..

- Setting up micro-venture capital fund to help people at the grass root level for the area they have expertise in. May be it is ok to tax the wealthy more but force them to invest in the new businesses as micro-venture capitalists.

- Encourage the huge pool of unemployed, diversified, experienced group of people (resources) to build their own businesses by providing a federal grant, entrepreneurship support, and tax break(must be better than bailing out the banks). Well, can even infuse creativity by ensuring that there are people coming together from different discipline to build a business.

- Leveraging huge unemployed talent pool to setup private educational institution to educate the future generation. Remember, the future gets hands-on education from these diversified, experienced people if we don't enforce the teachers should have high qualification. to teach. ( Kuczmarski mentioned about training people on innovation)

- For those ready to get their hands dirty; encourage, support (money and other) for the community farming. (Another way to focus on “what is consumed in America is built in America”)

- And how about letting the community driving the energy initiatives (especially green) by allowing them to setup their own community based power grid (You don’t have to be a nuclear scientist to setup a micro wind turbine). Also inline with Obama's commitment to invest in infrastructures, energy. Clean energy, new jobs..

A thought plane for you to think further; what are your ideas?

Personal problems and applying systematic innovation

2009-03-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

My first blog posting in 2009, the year of "The OX" according to Chinese, a year of the “giant great bear” according to the investors from Wall St to Sensex, and a year of unemployment for several unfortunate employees around the world, and a year of "cautiously optimistic" corporates, and a year of cost cutting, and after all an year of the low confidence and negative emotions.

Where as for some others a YEAR of a new a phase in their life!

I’m in the last category, (literally) expanding the 9-Windows of my (so far) life to a 12 windows adding to another layer of super-system consisting of new people (relatives), beliefs, systems, and cultures to consider and worry about (I’m not joking; ask another married man out there…).

If you are a true fan of solving contradictions, applying resource thinking, 9-Windows thinking, and even applying 40 inventive principles, welcome to the world of married life. I bet this is a space for you to work your Grey cells out to manage conflicts, your super-super-system involvement(ugghhh), and believe me, no better place than anywhere to practice systematic innovation.

So, how many out there have a personal systematic innovation framework created...??

Steve Hamm and TRIZ - BusinessWeek

2008-12-30T02:12:00.000-08:00

I missed this article about TRIZ written by Steve Hamm on BusinessWeek until I came to know this from my friend Navneet's blog. I was going all over the web on the Christmas day and have spent considerable amount there in BW online. Perhaps, this article came just after I closed my browser...

So, here comes a good closing bell for "Innovation in 2008" by giving lot of hopes for the structured innovation, or according to me tools and methodologies for HOW to innovate from someone like Steve Hamm for the year ahead. As Navneet said, when he writes about TRIZ, it becomes mainstream; his article appeared when we are about to close a turbulent year, also an year we used "Innovation" as a word pretty much anywhere and everywhere without any clue about it. I would like to consider his article as the "innovation redefined" for the year 2009, when people and organizations around the world will consider using the structure approach to enhance the way we think, solve problems, and produce great results.

It is interesting to note that Steve started this article referring to GE, a very new entrant embracing the TRIZ way of innovation (compard to Samsung or Intel). I remember having a very encouraging discussion with Sergei Ikovenko of GEN3 partners when he came to Bangalore for training the GE R&D engineers on TRIZ early this year (2008). Over the dinner, we were discussing about the future of TRIZ, and what made GE to embrace this ;he compared how Six Sigma became famous after GE started, and he fueled the hope that TRIZ or Systematic Innovation will set to become the way people innovate since GE has accepted it. (He also mentioned it took several years before GE accepted TRIZ for the worldwide roll out, shows that they have realized how powerful the methodology is) .

I hope this article from Steve Hamm is emphasizing that fact, and I look forward to see the new year when organizations around the world start focussing on "HOW" to innovate using TRIZ or other systematic innovation methologies.

I wish my readers a very best new year ahead. This article has enlightened me, and left a positive outlook about the way people innovate in the future by using the best of their brain using TRIZ, or Structured Innovation..

Trends and Prediction time

2008-12-23T21:39:00.000-08:00

Just few more days left to close an uneventful year for many. It is interesting to note the "recession impact" even in an industry usually bloom around the end of every year, the "Trend analyzer." There aren’t many “n” trends for 2009 article hit the news yet. Is it perhaps the last year Trend analysis proved wrong for many, or is it because the year 2009 is unpredictable..? To make sure that I’m not loosing the edge of keeping track of things like this, I went on a journey to Google yesterday. Only one low profiled Trend analysis, which again looks to me like for the sake of fulfilling their obligation to their readers, BusinessWeek published on Tech Trends to Expect in 2009. They discussed about two (just two) Tech trends (Expected) such as Home entertainment & personal assistance in general. It looks to me a misprint of the heading as Trends in 2009, because all are already out there in the current market as products or services. Yet another Trend analyzer called TrendWatching. (This company is not just an yearly Trend analyzer, but the provider of very interesting analysis with examples every month about consumer trends, market trends, branding and an array of other similar Trends.) This is not a free Trend report by the way, it is their business and hence you need to pay..

Now what is more interesting is that the famous Trend and prediction report from McKinsey, Gartner, IDC etc are not there yet. McKinsey played a smart game by capitalizing the current economy crisis to publish series of articles about “Creative Destruction” and how the New Year may unfold us due to the situation around us. Interesting read and, to me it looks an interesting learning to backup the “Crisis is an opportunity” statement again. Based on the study from the 1910’s crisis onwards, every situation like the current crisis (if any) have played a significant role in setting the Trends for the coming years. Creative Destruction is a famous word economist uses to describe the “spirit of creativity arises from the destruction”. May this “spirit of creativity” here unveil new technology, services, products, social Eco system, and green thinking to set a new Trend for the way we live!!

I’m not a Trend predictor, I rather embrace them. However, it is unfair to leave ere without describing some Trends aligned to Altshuller’s 9 Trends. :)

- Moving to Ideality : The ideal situation does not exist, but yet we see everything going towards that direction. From the Technological perspective, we must see the convergence of current technologies fulfilling more and more functionalities. The mobile phone may evolve and replace our personal computer, entertainment, health care. From the services perspective, the ideal scenario of one-stop-shop for solutions will become common. Even if companies are not going to change their core competency of business to provide you services that you need, you can find people leveraging this space and working as a middle layer to do that. One e.g from India could probably be the service provider offering Satellite Television of your choice by working with several players in the industry who are competing themselves.

- Moving to super-system: See the service industry moving to the adjacent space to offer you services. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the hospitals offering Micro-credit in India. Internationally, health care will be more affordable with the DIY (Do it yourself) with remote support from doctor. The travel industry (Airline companies) may be the first one to move to their super-system for offering new products and services. JetBlue/SouthWest may offer you a business conference facility adjacent to your airport with high-end technology from CISCO using Telepresence to stream your counter part in India for a face to face discussion.

Bush Shoe: Using people emotion as "Resources"

2008-12-22T02:42:00.001-08:00

I had just finished writing a note on how to enjoy your vacation by applying some creative thinking using techniques like "Resources" and Trends. I also mentioned even people emotions can be used as resources for creating new product/services/opportunities.

Read this (funny) story: "Bush shoe" creates 100K jobs..

I have no idea this information is real , may be just cooked up for publicity. But if this is real, think about the "Collective emotions" of people around the world, which even helped creating 100 new jobs in the current recession hit world...

I hope you don't create situations like this to generate emotions to create jobs; you may still cash on many other "Constructive emotions" around us..

Holidaying in Crisis - Holiday TRIZ Extended

2008-12-20T23:50:00.000-08:00

Original Posting: http://www.triz-journal.com/commentary/prakasankappoth

Ellen Domb posted a commentary about the Holiday TRIZ when the “sub-prime” axes slowly began to uproot the decades old financial institutions like Lehman Brothers. She suggested TRIZ thinking even while you are holidaying to identify innovation opportunities around us. I guess, for many of us the July 4th vacation then was much peaceful and happier than the December holiday when the whole world is reeling under economic crisis and mounting job losses. Come December, I’m not sure how many of us will really enjoy this vacation the way we would like to enjoy by keeping all worries aside.

As a strong believer of “every problem is an opportunity” statement, I see there is a good side of the current crisis we are facing. There is an interesting analogy perhaps relevant here is from the ancient Indian Ayurvedic detoxification treatment (Ancient Indian herbal medical practice), which is suggested by ancient literature. It is said that at least once in 3 years we should undergo a detoxification process to rejuvenate our body and cells to live longer and healthier life by expelling or neutralizing the toxic elements within. During this detoxification period, sometimes lasts up to 4 – 8 weeks depending upon your body condition, you are forced to go through the tough diets and stringent routines and live a life with all sorts of constraints. Drawing the same analogy with a positive frame of mind for today’s crisis, we should perhaps consider this as a detoxification package provided by our system to clean up the mess so that our future is better and young.

Now, how can we consider this situation with an opportunistic mindset and enjoy our vacation? What are the possibilities for you as an individual, wanting to do something your own, setting up your own new business, or as a representative of your current organization to develop new innovations, and most importantly HOW can you think out-of-the box and enjoy your vacation?

Extending the “Holiday TRIZ” concept, there are powerful thinking techniques within the TRIZ framework to help you enjoying your vacation by exercising your grey cells and adding some fun, but also generating new ideas for a better future.

Resource thinking: Resource thinking is a very powerful concept in TRIZ considering everything around you as the resources for solving a problem or creating new products or services, which is easily attainable and free of cost (or low cost).
- Resources are Time, Space, nearby systems (product/services), people, and even emotions
- Resources can be found within your domain, the super-system around you
- Even bad things in the system are powerful resource for you

E.g. Do you find people spending maximum TIME inside their houses? Can you create an affordable product or service for them to utilize that time?

Trends: There are nine laws of technological trends in TRIZ. But, look around you; can you identify some MicroTrends? Are people becoming spiritual during the crisis time, how are they spending their money for food items, children education plan, health habits… the lists can go on. The more you start observing small things around you, the better you start thinking about a new opportunity to capitalize the trends.

E.g. Do you see a trend more and more families are gathering to churches, more socialization happening around the church?

It is easier said than done, because we are naturally wired to think about the present worries than future opportunities. Wish you a very happy festival season and a vacation ahead. Hope the New Year will be prosperous with new business ideas, service model and products.

Story Telling - Idea Vs Suggestions - Continuation

2008-12-17T22:32:00.000-08:00

Story telling is not a new concept for us (leaving the new generation living with the gadgets and intensified EMF waves around them); we have been brought up by our elders at home by weaving stories of vivid characters ranging from mythological to fictitious creation. Over the years, these stories have impacted some of us and left a mental model in our subconscious mind. Some of us even refer those stories we listened in organizational contexts ranging from just inspiring people to impart effective leadership skills. The power of story telling thus is a very important way to make people think and accept the facts. If you are in the business of making people think differently (for anything), start identifying opportunities for story telling.

Coming back to what I really wanted to say here is a wonderful story shared by my fellow member and participant, Steve Swann through his blog about the recent LinkedIn discussion on the differences between ideas and suggestions. I mentioned this in my earlier posting and Steve participated with an interesting analogy I described there as the Garden. He has written this sweet story covering all that we had discussed there with some interesting point of view as what an organization should do to solve this conflict between ideas and suggestions. Thank you Steve for making this as a valuable discussion I have had.

Can X Prizes Spur Innovation?

2008-12-10T10:41:00.000-08:00

This isn’t the latest of its kind article from BusinessWeek. I happened to read this in several blogs with very interesting and valuable comments, point of view, suggestions, and also criticism on this article and overall format of X Prize. I don’t really mean to add my "point of view", but certainly wanted to share my little experience working with group contesting to win one such X Prize competition, the Automotive X Prize.

Airship Technologies Group from Oregon is a team participating in the Automotive X Prize competition with a very innovative design using track sphere technology. During TRIZCON 2008, the team led by Ben Berry, also the CIO of Oregon Department of Transportation came to Kent State University to utilize the wonderful "resources" gathered there from all across the globe, capable of solving problems and coming up with ideas using TRIZ framework . We all were assembled in a room a day before the actual conference and used various TRIZ techniques to solve some of their pressing problems, and came out with wonderful new ideas (some of them were really fantasies) for the Airship project.

Now to answer the question, Can X Prizes spur innovation – From my own personal experience, yes. Airship project saw several new innovative ideas created within a day using TRIZ framework. Contests like X Prizes can certainly push the people to try and experiment new way of doing things. One can be innovative in not just coming out with the final product and win $10 M, but like what Ben did, identify opportunity to even involve people around the globe.

You can also see the team worked here:

Differences between "Ideas & suggestions"...

2008-11-30T07:28:00.000-08:00

I have been part of a system where Innovation is classified in various spaces, and one being the space of creativity and ideas.. Over the last 3+ years, I'm also part of the technological system of encouraging one aspects of this mind space called Idea management system. In the beginning, I was perhaps excited more than anyone because the availability of a platform to contribute my own ideas (believe me, real ideas). Eventually, I also became part of the entire process of idea management by talking to idea nurturers (senior management), following up with them and commenting the ideas, talking to the idea submitters. The idea management system soon started a place for people to submit everything they thought ideas, but not the nurturers. A real contradiction started emerging from there, we do not want to restrict idea submitters by asking them not to submit mere suggestions, but at the same time, nurturers are really demotivated to follow up with them. A real problem with no answer. I thought, I should start finding out what others are thinking about this contradiction, and posted a question in LinkedIn group.

Are there any differences between "Ideas" & "Suggestions"....

Innovation as a key (abused) word all over, organizations are trying to put some effort in tapping the internal knowledge base through systems and processes. One such is the Idea Management. I guess technologies like Web2.0, SaaS have made this idea management systems more affordable for organizations now. After the initial excitements and few hundreds of "ideas", you started seeing "ideas" that are not ideas, but according to the people who are supposed to take the idea ahead (senior management), these are mere "suggestions". However, if we look at the history of an idea management process/system, we can see it all started from the "suggestion" box.

This is a tricky situation if you have come across so. We can't restrict or create a mental block by having any rules for not submitting what a submitter think is an idea; at the same time, if it looks like a suggestion, the nurturer who supposed to take care of the ideas to the next level would loose interest. If no weeding out happens the idea management system will end up ideas mixed with suggestions without any nurturing and an over head system by end of the day.

I was wondering if you have come across situation like this. There is certainly a thin line between ideas and suggestions. Balancing them without any impact on all the stake holders would be success of an idea management system.

Very encouraging responses overall, and some good pointers to solve the contradictions. You may certainly want to read them here.

IP - Innovation in Practice...

2008-11-22T19:41:00.001-08:00

I wish I get a chance to ask a simple question to someone working for "Apple", or "Google" (most innovative companies) "how do you innovate"? Well, haven't come across anyone from Apple or Google, but I certainly had asked this question to people from other organizations, and myself when I read case studies about other innovative companies, famous books about innovation.

Now, what do you think their answers would have been for this question, "How do you innovate..?"

My perspective is that not many will have an answer that is straight forward; there are 200+ pages books dedicated for answering this, yet by reading till the end of it, you have no clue about how do they innovate. Gone are the days when we talked about 20% of the time given to your employees to do what they like; great concept indeed, but then there are less than 10% of the people in your organization can do something worthwhile in the 20% time. Still 80% of the organizational thinking is not innovating, if I may say.

My point here is what IBM nicely presented through their advertisement, "Stop talking, start doing".. We all can talk about innovation, and even convince the world out there that we are innovative someway. But, as a matter of fact, the lip-branding is happening from the top of the organization with no clue what is happening underneath. As I used to emphasize always, innovation starts in the mind of an individual, first thinking effectively, and then thinking creatively. The individual ideas then routed to the wisdom of crowds for fine tuning, massaging, and finally implementing. Easy to say in two lines, but this takes decades for an organization to practice, and the one succeeded should have looked at not just one aspect, but all other factors associated it with. After few years of my experience, mostly figuring out all these characteristics, innovation is not a word to talk about, but is a word about “practicing” it. IBM may say “start DOing it”, but the DO as the DO with the assumption of your intellectual maturity is still a long way to go, and perhaps you may never get there; hence “practice” innovation. Practice thinking effectively, practice thinking creatively, practice encouraging and practice……..

This isn’t a rebranding of my blog with a theme “IP- Innovation in Practice”, but a three colored wrapper to the concept of systematic innovation. If you use any tools, techniques as part of your innovation saga, great – you have established a base. When you use them, you are not just talking, but practicing to think effectively, creatively and solving problems innovatively. The more you practice, you create a culture, and the culture will bring you an encouraging eco-system, and there you go..

For me TRIZ/Systematic innovation created the first step, and hence the blog TRIZit dedicated to the “first line of thoughts”. I’m moving on to the super-system level activities about “Practicing Innovation”, from a broader look, not limiting to the tools and techniques, but how you can use them across. Keep reading; share your views, thoughts…

(Closed) Open Innovation

2008-11-15T22:45:00.000-08:00

Innovation is already a head-raising word (not to mention it is also abused) all over, not just for the growth tag associated with it, but for solving several problems humankind is facing today. Among many other concepts talked about in this spectrum, the emergence of a silent, but successful innovation strategy has been the community (Users, partners, suppliers, competitors) based innovation, which we all are familiar with the Open source movement. This is known as “Open innovation” in the industry, and considered to be the next big approach (perhaps already a big thing) for identifying and solving problems, creating new products and solutions. The concept of Open innovation is based on the philosophy, “some one, somewhere has solved a similar/same problem that you are facing, or possess the knowledge to solve your problems, go and tap it”, which is also the philosophy of TRIZ framework.

The framework of open innovation has been around for a while, and the basic version should have come out from the value engineering concept. Several organizations across the world have started realizing the potential, untapped knowledge networks for solving their internal problems and creating new products and services. For last three to four years, Open innovation has gained momentum in the market space after realizing the success achieved by fortune 100 and 500 companies like P&G, DuPont, Philips, Kraft, Cisco etc.

A new and innovative business service model has been thriving around the open innovation phenomena in the last couple of years as the “idea brokers”. The knowledge networks today are well connected through internet and through social networking; these companies have created a new business model by connecting organizations wanting ideas to the mass, big knowledge networks around the world for problem solving and innovation. Companies like Innocentive and NineSigma are in the news for achieving higher growth since their existences through this model. However, I believe there are challenges in the open innovation space today; most probably the excessive of “Open-ness” of the external knowledge ecosystem. All the companies mentioned above facilitating Open Innovation are trying to solicit ideas from huge and widespread knowledge networks from around the world, which is wide open, and completely uncontrolled. The assumption is also that the world out there is capable of solving "my" problems with their current knowledge basse, which is limiting the external knowledge networks based on their knowledge. Perhaps, this is another reason, small and medium sized companies are still hesitating to embrace open innovation and maximize their potential as big companies.

Is there a role of facilitation in Open Innovation, structured approach to tap the potential knowledge networks?

Systematic(Software) Innovation

2008-11-02T09:16:00.001-08:00

I have just received the book, Systematic (Software) Innovation from Darrell Mann. He had mentioned about his book several times in last 4 years and the anticipation had become oblivious at some point of time for us. Last month he told me the launch of his latest book, Systematic Innovation for software and now almost half done with that.

If you would have read his early edition of Systematic Innovation for business & Mgmt, and Technology, this is an easy read (hence I could finish half), flipping through the pages will do. However, if you are interested in learning TRIZ for software and are new to this concept, consider this as a good reference book, and suggest a thorough read, but not a very easy read as a book from Christensen..

First impression – Considerable changes in his style; not difficult to read, usage of nice and catchy words, phrases, simple explanation of the techniques. This is a great improvement considering his previous books.

I'm not intending here for a complete review. I guess, I need to read (or flip through) this completely to do enough justice to that. But, something out-there-in-my-mind:

- Good examples used across. However, should have had more detailed examples with “real” software stuffs; data structure, algorithms, architecture design etc. Considering the time he had taken for this book, I can understand how difficult it would be. But surely great scope for the future editions.
- Has covered lot of UI examples. I’m happy to see the Google search engine is there in his book
- Using perception mapping for software – I was expecting to see something more of this use in software when we were exchanging notes long time back.
- Very good, step-by-step approach to applying it in actual problem with lot of templates. Definitely a good help for the first timers, and especially for the software guys.
- A sole good chapter devoted how to teach this – Well thought through. Will help lot of new people would want to embrace this in their organization
- Last couple of chapters about the fascinating (for me at least) concepts about ToE (Theory of Everything). I’m sure he is writing his next book with this concept.

What is important to note here is that he started the book with a very important fact (Everybody in the software domain should know that); no real innovation in software for last several years (don’t look at the USPTO website, he says they aren’t necessarily new invention in the software world), and the innovation in software can actually happen not at the core, but at the outer layer – Design, functions etc.

Finally – Thanks to Darrell. Last four years of applying TRIZ for software in my company (no book targeting TRIZ for software existed until now) deriving our own approaches from the basic TRIZ and his previous books has been validated now. I can go back and show his book, applications, case studies, approaches to those who weren’t ready to listen what I had to say without any “master data”!

TRIZ Journal Commentary

2008-10-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

I have started writing commentary for TRIZ journal. Ellen Domb, editor TRIZ Journal encouraged me to share my thoughts and tidbits to a bigger audience through TRIZ Journal. Katie, editor TRIZ Journal helped me to setup, and finally I'm up there. This is another platform to share and learn the best of TRIZ and Innovation. I look forward my readers to send their views and feedback.

http://www.triz-journal.com/commentary/prakasankappoth

Thanks, Ellen and Katie for your support!

Evolution of browsers.... response from my friend

2008-10-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

I just realized that my friend Alex responded for the earlier posting - Evolution of Browsers...". I apologize him not having looked at this for a loooong time and responded him back. Transitioning myself into the super-system activities of my current job for the past couple of months have taken my time off from everything, but is a very exciting time in my job... Ok, here is what Alex told me and would like to share with others..

Prakash, what do you think about this idea?

Universal Scheme of Evolution
and Search Engine Forecast

The major processing tools for Internet information are Search Engines (SE). Today's level of SE development does not allow using the collected informational potential of the Internet in full. As a direction of SE development, it is suggested to add the Universal Scheme of Evolution approach to technology of SE. It will allow:
- To describe evolution of any object
- To search information and to create a content (information, data) more objectively
- To present the unity of the world and unity of its trends of evolution more distinctively
Actually, the approach «Search Engine + USE-USESoft» would provide new quality for information search on the Internet.

You can find it here - http://triz-evolution.narod.ru/USE_and_Search_Engine_E.pdf

Sincerely,
AZ

Hi Alex, thank you very much. I remembered you while writing this blog. When we met in April, you gave me a good overview about the search engine and evolution. I read your paper and I guess we are very close to our IFR. I'm wondering if this idea is something you might want to take it for prototyping.

More on my email to you now..

Evolution of browsers and Google Chrome – TRIZing it..

2008-09-09T11:54:00.001-07:00

Couple of years back I was explaining the Ideal Final Result concept to our engineers (Computer engineers) using the example of search. The question we tried to answer; what is the IFR for us (consumers) for searching something. Despite having a very invigorating ideation process and several ideas there, nothing actually got implemented that I know. However, it helped me to facilitate TRIZ sessions for the days to come, and at times I was intrigued with the potential possibilities in the human-computer interaction for one of the most active phenomena on the internet, search. I’m clearly recapturing few ideas we discussed (you just can’t forget some ideas due to the nature of science fiction kind).

What is the Ideal Final Result for us in the “search” function?

- We never want to search if we know everything – This one is beyond the science fiction indeed.
- What if my system can understand what I would be searching in another few minutes – Something like mind reader?
Possibly some commercially viable IFR’s
- I get paid for searching. Currently, searching is a free service..
- My search engine selects the keyword for my search automatically and search for me.
- My search engine knows what I need to search the moment I go to the browser
- My search engine knows from where (my location) I search and what
- My search engine understands my situation in which I’m searching and giving the results based on that. A classic example; searching for hospitals, and I get the results with the hospitals very close to the place I’m searching from.
- A search engine does my actual work – Such as I’m writing a research paper on cognitive thinking and emotions, and the moment I hit on the search, I may get the results related to the topic I’m searching, and search engine recommends an extra paragraph.. (Hmmm..This is a cool feature for me to finish some pending articles…)
- Browser understands my emotions and search based on that. My blood pressure is so high after a meeting with my boss, and my browser is providing me some tips to cool down myself. (Think about integration with my mouse embedded a blood pressure sensor and browser)
- Searching what I may need tomorrow

The list can go on:

When Google announced their browser, Chrome, last week, I didn’t have to let my mind think about all these IFR’s mentioned above, but evident enough to intuit what’s going on with them. Why in the world Google should develop own browser in a very competitive market, also having had partner with Firefox?

They may have nicely packaged about their browser capabilities, (I must admit some of them are unique though), however, that doesn’t give their browser an edge on what’s there already, especially FireFox or Safari for a common user.

Illustrating the entire thought process behind launching a browser, what I believe Google’s attempt to bring a browser is nothing more than to implement the next generation search feature, indeed a very innovative thinking and an innovative way to achieve the same via their own browser.

Few ideas we discussed above has been implemented in some part of the world, not necessarily specific to the search, but in similar context. Product like Autonomy is already providing intelligence searching, but with a limited knowledge base (internal to the organization). However, bringing intelligence to the search for the mass, like the way Google excelled in the search engine isn’t very easy with a restricted user and knowledge base.

How could Google fill this gap? A dedicated browser for using their own search engine should help them understanding the usage pattern, context in which we search etc and add some brain. Browser as an application running in my own PC, can facilitate more actions, record/log the instances, situations, applications I’m running and more to understand me as a user.

Here is a classic (?) feature:

When I search for the latest movie and book a ticket through online booking site, my search engine knows that and records it; after few days, I’m enjoying some music on my PC and suddenly remembers this movie I watched and want to check out the option to buy some music and open the browser to search. Bingo, there comes your browser and tells you, dude – here is the best site to purchase this song rated best by your friends (remember I also use my social network) from the movie you watched last week!

Well, not fantasies after reading this news, I guess – Be sure to read Chrome’s fine print. Some of the terms and conditions are very close to achieving the IFR of self searching, not searching etc, if they get to know what I do using their browser, the way I described above.

Incidentally, they have amended some of the clause mentioned, but still I believe they are on to something. Let’s wait and watch.

Next innovation for mobile phone companies and service providers – Using Trends and 9-Windows

2008-08-04T05:13:00.000-07:00

I read a recent article revealing startling statistics about the mobile usage around the world, especially in the United States. They say, within next 2 – 4 years, 100% of the US population will have a mobile phone access. This indeed a great news for mobile companies and service providers; they sure will make some money in the coming years. Now, think about this; what will they do after 2 – 4 years? Where will they make money from? Companies manufacturing mobile phones perhaps will do the break even by packing more functionality in the same phone and selling to the same customers, or coming out with new jazzy phone to the same customer who will contribute to the millions of tons of e-Waste . What about the service providers? They can’t sell the same connectivity package to the same customer again, and I don’t think they will make enough money selling the “Value added services” either. Are we going to see a bubble bursting here?

A paradigm shift in the business model is a difficult proposition for any organizations due to various reasons. Competencies, culture, money, brand, and including several other factors are typically hindering the growth of companies when they reach the saturation point as in the above example. Today innovation is a conscious thinking and strategic approach for organization, the companies mentioned in the above examples may be trying to do something, if not coming out with a paradigm shift in their business.

A very important TRIZ technique useful for any innovative thinking today is the “Trends of technological system evolution”. Although the basic nine trends are derived based on the developments of technological systems, adaptability to business problems at the super-system for any technology dependent company is immense. Considering the above example of a mobile phone company or service provider, applying one or more “trends” should help them coming out with a new, sustainable innovation.

Here is a quick example as how we can apply one of the nine trends in this particular and potential problem.

Trend: Transition to higher level system (super-system): Here is my business interpretation of this trend.

“The new developments and improvements of an existing system (product/process/business/consumer behavior/culture/even emotions) will move in to the super-system environment, or use one or more super-system elements, after exhausting all the options for further improvements in the current systems”

I think we can see this trend easily fitting in the area of several new services introduced by companies in this domain. A cell phone service provider today is more than just a communication infrastructure provider, but has already moved into the super-system of entertainments, information, internet, satisfying business needs, remote computing, personal needs, dating services… and the list goes on. Few from the list may sound like real innovations, but I think we have a REAL, BIG super-system out there for more path breaking service innovations for a cell phone service provider. Think about this for a while, and list down all ideas now;

Now, consider a 9-Windows structure, and think about (some of) your stake holder(s) in certain environment; such as a busy professional, a passenger in a metro train, a working woman on the way back home from her office (btw - assuming all of them are using a cell phone) etc. Now, look at the super-system comprising their activities, environment where they are, and the flow of activities; such as business person going to catch a flight, working mother heading back home, a student going to write his/her exam. Now, connect all these super-system elements, activities, situations from the past to future with the original Trend we talked about. Do you have any new ideas, really different than you have listed down earlier??

This part of the world is still waiting for the iPhone, and I’m one among them. May be so, before ending this blog entry, this is what I have got: Can mobile service provider get in to the adjacent business of Airline companies? How about they work as an entertainment service provider for airplane companies? I have my iPhone (or any good phone) and I get streaming movies on that, no on the inbuilt LCD provided by aircraft. And then there is a huge saving for airline companies, they (aircraft) don’t need the LCD’s, weight is reduced, and the cost, of course improved the overall fuel efficiency!!!

Anyway, somebody somewhere might already be working on this….

The point here is putting a structure in your thinking using techniques like these will never exhaust the options you can have in front of you..

Trend Simplified - From John Cooke, Innovator's Sweet Spot

2008-07-28T00:48:00.000-07:00

After last TRIZCON, I'm a frequent visitor to this fantastic innovation blog by John Cooke, Founder Co-Catalyst, UK. I thought my readers also must visit his blog to understand TRIZ thinking with real life case studies and examples.

His recent entry about BMW concept car and TRIZ trend "Law of Increasing Dynamism" is a great example to look at the evolution and even predict and incorporate the next trend in a very challenging industry questioning their self existence due to the increasing energy price.

Another interesting trend in the automobile industry is about the uneven developments of sub-systems (Law of non-uniform evolution). What we see now as the GREEN CAR developments and the problem around it is probably due to these uneven developments of sub-system being ignored or underestimated. If the designers are aware of this trend and accommodate them in their design, I believe we should have seen a real, affordable GREEN CAR by now. I think everyone trying to perfect the sub-systems to meet the overall design and come out with a perfect design.

Learning from unusual source : TRIZ interpretation for Concrete Vibration and Oil freezing

2008-07-24T02:32:00.000-07:00

John Davis, a chemist in Bloomington, Illinois won $20k for his idea for solving the Oil storage tank freezing problem in Alaska through Innocentive, a company facilitating open innovation. He seems to have got the idea from the civil engineering, where pouring concrete using a pneumatic vibrating system.

As a TRIZ enthusiastic any news like this typically invite my attention; first, because this is a great example of “learning from unusual source”, the fundamental of TRIZ methodology; second; interpreting this as the TRIZ problem solving using techniques within TRIZ framework, so that we can reuse the same principles somewhere else in a similar situation.

Here is the technical problem statement John Davis solved: "Breaking Viscous Shear of crude oil". This is a specific problem statement for the crude oil industry. Now abstracting this as a TRIZ problem, we can replace the name “crude oil” with something like “object”; now the generalized problem statement can become “Breaking Viscous shear of an object”. The object again is a generalized term, but the property viscosity mentioned in the problem statement may give us a line of thought; the object is something in the liquid form. (Are there objects in the solid form with viscosity property?)

Actual Solution: Concrete mixing unit; if you keep concrete vibrating, it won't setup as long as you want, and you can keep it in the liquid form!

Possible TRIZ contradictions solved by the solutions from the concrete mixing: We need to improve the “stability of an object” (keeping the concrete in the liquid form) Vs worsening parameter, “Shape of the object” (If you keep the concrete for long enough, the shape is changed from liquid to solid)

Classic TRIZ contradiction matrix has the following principles for us to generate solutions for the above contradiction.

22. *Blessing in disguise* or *Turn Lemons into Lemonade*

# Use harmful factors (particularly, harmful effects of the environment or surroundings) to achieve a positive effect.

# Eliminate the primary harmful action by adding it to another harmful action to resolve the problem.

# Amplify a harmful factor to such a degree that it is no longer harmful.

1. Segmentation

# Divide an object into independent parts.

# Make an object easy to disassemble.

# Increase the degree of fragmentation or segmentation.

18. Mechanical vibration

# Cause an object to oscillate or vibrate.

# Increase its frequency (even up to the ultrasonic).

# Use an object's resonant frequency.

# Use piezoelectric vibrators instead of mechanical ones.

# Use combined ultrasonic and electromagnetic field oscillations.

4. Asymmetry

# Change the shape of an object from symmetrical to asymmetrical.

# If an object is asymmetrical, increase its degree of asymmetry.

Looks like a classic TRIZ mapping, isn't it? Applying principle 18, Mechanical vibration is the solution.

Hold on; is it so easy to get here? Since John Davis is so observant and perhaps an innate synthesizer he could have created a connection between two distinct domain. But how can we identify the contradictions for the above problem, “Breaking Viscous Shear of x object", so that we can get in the plane of thinking "mechanical vibration" without any knowledge about the concrete mixing procedures? Or from the TRIZ angle, how can we identify the contradiction "Stability of the object" Vs " shape of the object” from the problem, “Breaking Viscous shear of an object”?

I think the first and foremost step in any problem solving situation is asking QUESTIONS.

Darrell Mann, in his book “Hands-On Systematic Innovation” has defined a simple yet powerful technique for asking questions called “Problem Explorer”. It starts with asking two questions from two levels, one is to get down to the micro level by asking “What is stopping me to solve this problem” (which is also part of the Ideal Final Result framework) and asking “Why is it a problem” to escalate us in the frame of super-system thinking.

As a TRIZ problem solver, what else you can apply for a problem like this to extract the contradictions?

Should Oil Be Cheap? - Blessing in Disguise

2008-07-24T02:11:00.001-07:00

Business Week online published this article enumerating with several real life case studies of the good aspect of increasing Oil Price. In my earlier posting, I mentioned about the Blessing in Disguise concept, a TRIZ principle applying it in a situation like this. I guess it is also about the perspective. My friend Jack Hipple, a regular Commentator for TRIZ Journal recently wrote about the perspective. It is the way we can look at what's going on around. Even the harmful element (like increasing the fuel price) is good for us and the world.

I also believe a good case for applying a technique like Size, Time and Cost from TRIZ here. Darrell Mann has done some work on using STC for businesses. Here, if we replace Size, Time and Cost with equivalent parameter in the business, we can see the space between each with enough opportunities and good aspects of increasing oil price.

Globalization is here - Microtrends around me..

2008-07-21T06:38:00.000-07:00

Someone from UK asked me a while back about various consumer trends in India. I didn’t have much to tell him because I wasn’t observing several macro and micro trends in India closely, or rather just ignoring the micro trends around the country. The most obvious and visible trends in India are about the mobile phone, shoppertainment (malls and multiplexes), penetration of satellite television, automobile related etc. Now I’m observing trends more seriously, several of them are micro trends. I ‘m sure some of them will fall into the TRIZ trends, but what is more important here is to understand trends, and the business opportunities.

I travel to my home town, about 200 miles south west of Bangalore called Kerala. I lived there for 19 years before moving out for job opportunities, and after a gap of 5 years, I started making a visit there at least once in two month as I consider this place a truly amazing stress buster from the chaotic life in a city like Bangalore. Some of the trends I see here and perhaps happening in many other cities in India are;

Trend # 1 – The Radio is back. At least till 2 years back, radio here means the state owned transmission station. Before the television started ruling in last 10 year or so, radio meant big to everyone here. Then the trend from radio became television, and multiple sub-trends in the television, including b&w TV to color, and state owned transmission to satellite cable, and now to the direct-to-home. In the last few years, radio is back with a bang. Within last one year, 15 new privatized radio channels are on air, thanks to government allowing privatization. This particular trend may look just any other trends already matured in big cities, but I don’t think we can ignore the subtle, sub-trends here, some them are;

- Breaking the linguistic barrier. Now you can converse with any local people adding minimum two English words. Opportunities: International companies making their ways in, advertising and publicity exercise is finding an easy way to reach to consumers.

- Boon to the mobile phone and service providers. Send and SMS to win prizes, right answers. The list goes on, and yes the mobile phone has become ubiquitous here.

- RJ – The new job trend. I don’t think I need any explanation here, but the local guys are the new attraction in many of these FM stations.

Yet another important trend is the awareness, and penetration of technology in the finance sector. Banking, investment, spurting of small security brokers, entry of the big multinationals, all around here. The bank counter is replacing with ATM machines, and the queues in front of ATM machines are increasing. This trend is impacting the low class and middle class people to be more financial savvy, and the news of ups and downs of stock market is seriously watched by them.

Well, for a reader living in a city, these trends are nothing unusual; but for me, having lived in my place for over 19 years, these trends are more than trivial filling lot of positivism in various developments. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a McDonald or Subway in another one year there. You can perhaps see many relevant TRIZ trends for the developments I have talked here, do feel free to comment and any other similar trends you see around you, potentially huge business opportunity or as the sign of globalization.

The Globalization is really there..!!

Shedding Airplane Weight and improving fuel efficiency - Why not TRIZ?

2008-07-08T10:50:00.001-07:00

Can’t stop thinking about numerous potential real world case studies connecting to the Oil price rice, and the overall impact around the world. The badly hurt guys in this systemic healing of our environment is (Sorry, but I still think the oil price rise is for good..) the Airlines companies. We have witnessed the ups and downs of this industry in last decade or so. However, now it looks like they are really bleeding. I wouldn’t say this, if I hear stories about airline companies going bankrupt ONLY in America.

Coming to the point; the recent news articles are about how airlines companies shedding their weights to increase the fuel efficiency and trying to survive. They are pushing pretty much everything on to the treadmill, and finally trying to reduce the amount of water they will carry for the lavatory use!! I’m sure that must be the last thing they would ever want to do.

What is stimulating me here is the opportunity for applying TRIZ thinking. There are multiple tools one can think about applying for the overall problem. There is a visible business contradiction; “Reducing the weight of an aircraft by replacing or removing goods” Vs “Less satisfied customer”, or possibly “Increasing fuel efficiency” Vs “Reducing passenger comfort”. I’m sure we can find more, and may be real contradictions they currently face. Let me consider the latest thinning exercise by airline companies, reducing the volume of water onboard. What is the ideal scenario for all of us here is that “there is water” whenever we need, and there is “no water” whenever we don’t need. A direct physical contradiction, and solutions could emerge if we apply both “Segmentation in time”, and “Segmentation in space”.

Now a quick look at the resources: air, gas, space, clouds, other aircraft, weather, temperature difference, concept of air circulation through jet engine, heat generated, technology availability for air circulation, vents, and many that I don’t know.

Now how about creating water from the air? Usage of water is limited till the flight is cruising in an altitude where the temperature always falls beyond -35 Celsius. How about converting this freezing water particle to water? We can use the heat generated by engine to do this? Let me assume their engineers will have some better idea now.

Yet another problem airline company faces, and more crucial to them is removing the ice deposit. How about the direct application of “principle 22”, blessing in disguise?

Eating soup with a fork – TRIZ is so easy..!!

2008-07-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

Ellen Domb connected a fantastic blog to the TRIZ world this month through TRIZ Journal. Jim Belfiore, currently working with Invention Machine with loads of insight and experience in applying TRIZ in the real problem has this new, fantastic posting. I like this particular one, Eating Soup with your fork, which is about a simple, yet powerful example for learning TRIZ very effectively. He started this posting in a subtle way to give us enough understanding about the simplicity of TRIZ thinking, although he could have explained this more beautifully with other techniques in TRIZ.

Here is my response to it.

Hi Ellen & Jim, Thanks for bringing this post to TRIZ Journal. This is the kind of example we must give it to the audience wanted to know about the effective thinking part using TRIZ.

Looking at this from another TRIZ tool perspective, and as Jim mentioned breaking down to simple problems using IFR. Well, not perfect, but here is my 5 minutes thinking..

What is the real IFR here: I want to have some soup; more ideally, want my tongue, stomach (or whatever biological system) to feel the taste of the soup, and also get the benefit of drinking the soup. I don't care about serving me the soup in a small bowl, with a fork, or a spoon, or a straw..

What is stopping me to do this now? (within the constraints) : I can not achieve the IFR (above mentioned) with the given option (Fork). So, simply say, I can't access the soup the way it has been served to me.

Why is it stopping ? Because, the state of the soup given to me is in such a way that my biological system requires an external (spoon etc) medium to achieve the IFR.

How can I remove this obstacle? If there is a way that I can access the soup without bothering about an external medium (fork), I can achieve my IFR.

Who else is solving a similar problem: I just applied a 9-windows in my mind, with the system as a person sitting in a restaurant. I can see the super system as the entire eatery related items. So, how about solving this the way chocolate industry doing? What if I can get the soup like a capsule??

Oil for thought - The other side of oil price and Green thinking

2008-07-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

For the last one month, apart from all other gloomy news, the Oil is dominating the media. The crisis here in India is more than just media hypes and talks, but is the reality, the oil price has certainly impacted the economy in every aspects. It looks like other countries are also going through similar situation. Anyway, the outlook of the current situation is indeed a concern..
“Whatever happened, happened for the good; whatever is happening, is happening for the good; whatever will happen, will also happen for the good only. You need not have any regrets for the past. You need not worry for the future. The present is happening... (Bhagavad Gita)”

The quote above is befitting if we look at the same oil crisis through the TRIZ angle; it is none other than the biggest problem the world is facing and also the biggest opportunity today, Global Warming. Apart from everything else, rising pollution causes the global warming, and interestingly, the study has also revealed that the major sources of pollutants are generated by burning fossil fuels.

So, what is the TRIZ connection? I think it is more than the TRIZ at the super system level. It is perhaps the natural evolution of balancing the system around us. So, what is immediately coming out is the principle # 22 - Blessing in disguise, increasing oil price could help reducing the global warming.

How,

a) Oil consumption will reduce for sure, hence pollutants generated are decreased.
b) Government and industry all around the world will seriously start thinking about alternative energy.

C) More investment will go into research for producing clean energy, and whatever so far has been invented and shelved due to the higher cost will start getting commercial viability

d) Invention like bio-fuel, ethanol etc will increase the production of vegetation, and the more plants, better the environment.

Yet another technique one can use in a situation like this is STC, Size, Time and Cost.

An original technique by Altshuller to break the psychological inertia, STC is a powerful concept for understanding the impact in a 3 dimension axis.

Here is an example, applying STC in the Oil crisis can see some interesting thoughts emerging in your mind, some of them could be opportunities.

Rearview Mirror - A quick recap - My presence at TRIZCON

2008-07-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

April was a very eventful month for me. I finally got the opportunity to meet many TRIZnik's whom I had been communicating since 2007 conference, and of course, to make new friendship. I presented my paper after working on almost one year with the help of my friend and colleague. I got this idea of topic immediately when I started blogging last year. Last year post here , and the final paper published in TRIZ Journal

I have realized over the time that this paper is just a beginning of what I will call as a tip of the iceberg looking at through TRIZ platform. I'm all fascinated with the fact that, TRIZ, otherwise known as applicable for technical context is more powerful, perhaps what Altshuller would have imagined in the everyday life. Whether it is people, team, business, management, organization related problem, TRIZ thinking is the way to go. Well, in this particular situation TRIZ is coming a magic wand to unearth certain soft side of problem definition and solution through modeling. What is more complicated is the depth of the subject, emotions itself. This particular paper has made me to understand certain elements of human thinking otherwise I would have never bothered to think about. So, overall I'm happy.

So what is the outcome of this study: A bunch of new books about social psychology, emotions, visual intelligence , neuro- intelligence, selfish gene etc in my already increasing unread book collections.. (But, these books, I've already finished reading couple of them). The overall philosophy is very interesting in this domain. The way our brain is networked to think, the emotions carriers, origin of emotions, the reason of emotions, intelligence and emotions, and not the least, but the connection of creative thinking. I hope to do more reading in this line and post my thoughts.

Rearview Mirror

2008-06-11T05:19:00.000-07:00

The explosion of information available out there is the reason one should unlearn. Same way, the overdose of information (seen, heard, experienced, observed, and read…) collected and collated by brain, and processing (creating, synthesizing – whatever you can call) them senselessly could have impacted my mind’s (brain) ability to interpret thoughts correctly for the last couple of months. Perhaps due to the information overload (it’s a nice excuse btw), my mind simply declined for everything that I ACTUALLY wanted to do. Not just writing (including this blog), but reading (several books that have piled up on my desk), talking sense (yes – really!) to people I love to talk about anything under the sun, and sometime even thinking properly. (I’m not insane yet)

After couple of months of mood swings, caused by internal and external influences and incidents, I think the phase I was in had given me enough learning. Some of them are, how human mind can become completely unproductive, and some time one can intentionally keep it so idle for no specific reason, and at times even by intrinsically discouraging certain productive thoughts. Having been experienced a situation like this, I can imagine the challenges involved in dealing with the subject of effective thinking, creativity, and inventive thinking in a large group. The effectiveness of a facilitator certainly limits by the collective psychological conditions in a room. Now the question is how can I excel as a facilitator in an environment like this? What should be the best way to make our mind to get rid of the consciousness denial mode of mind for effective thinking?

Anyway, as for now let that be a piece of to justify my absence from the blog world. It’s been more than three months since I have written something. Not completely true what I said above, because I have had so many topics to write about, some of them are really interesting. But, I just couldn’t..

Here I’m; now ready to dump my three months of thoughts, observations, learning, mistakes so on. I also hope to continue my blogs based on lean principles.

TRIZ and Systematic Innovation in MBA education

2008-03-17T05:15:00.001-07:00

I have read enough about innovation as a topic in MBA education. It was my googling keyword once upon a time, and I gave it up. I found nothing much in India talking about innovation as part of an MBA program. Perhaps there is something, devoted as few chapters in their text book; but still no one seems to have talked about them. I've almost completed my MBA now, and as I had thought of ,there was one chapter talking about Innovation management. Great! (I'm glad that I learned something from experience..)

Last week I was part of a group of students from XIME, considered #20 ranking in MBA education here in Bangalore. We were there to take a day long workshop on systematic innovation, especially TRIZ. My friend and an alumnus of XIME, Harsha Goolya helped organizing this, my VP had been there some time back to give them a sample talk, and finally we concluded with this day long workshop. It was great interacting with these young managers. Something re-iterating as why innovation, creativity and thinking is not a part of MBA education; the impact of text book knowledge and creative thinking, and most importantly, how a framework like TRIZ helped them breaking their routine thinking and coming up with innovative ideas.

The important aspect of the session was a case study that is so much of in news now. (New international airport and impact in short-haul travelers). The case study was something they liked it, (I learned their life is all about case studies) and at the end of 3 hours came out with several innovative ideas by applying 9Windows, IFR, Resources and contradictions.

Great learning experience, and now I'm almost convinced about the need of teaching techniques like TRIZ for MBA education. Waiting for them to come out of college and learn these aspects from their experience will not work for the world today. Innovation, and coming up with creative ideas are the need of the hour, and our education system, especially management should embrace this TODAY!

Barcamp innovation - Icamp conclusion

2008-03-17T05:02:00.000-07:00

It is almost a month after my last blog. It is also about a month after Icamp, first innovation camp here in Bangalore. A very satisfying experience indeed to organize the first barcamp with huge participations. Over 185 people registered for the event, 80 of them actually turned up, about 14 sessions, and some good outcome.

-A creativity and innovation community is formed in Bangalore, creanet. I see some interesting discussions happening there
- More Icamp is being planned around Bangalore and other cities. I look forward for something more interesting.

Few lessons learned - Innovation as a topic is huge, we could have restricted this to get some interesting aspects and focussed discussions. But never mind, this is the first one, and created a good platform.

Some good coverage from fellow blogger's..

Pavan Soni
Live Mint Coverage by Kenny Jacob
Padma S
Saurabh Minni

Photographs

Ideas are ALWAYS free...

2008-02-21T01:23:00.000-08:00

Well, I believe in it.. Ideas are always free.. The pedal laptop idea was something I thought is funny, but this Business Week article is making me also believe that, there are another 100 or 1000 already thinking (or already implemented) about the same..

Now you have a walkstation, not workstation. Also think GREEN.. how about the waste (burning calories); power something..!!

Result is important - Applying to TRIZ itself..

2008-02-14T22:51:00.000-08:00

For last few weeks, my mail box is flooded with emails from various TRIZnik's around the world discussing about TRIZ in Wikipedia, ARIZ, Classical TRIZ, flavored TRIZ etc. etc. It all started with an interesting post by a TRIZnik blaming unorthodox explanation and usage of TRIZ, such as explanation of "hammer - nail" for Su-Field, differently compared to classical TRIZ. The continuation then bifurcated to ARIZ, then the knowledge base available around the web, such as Wikipedia, then further to why Wiki is good, not good and it is still going on.. Interestingly, this email discussion is giving me enough confidence about my understanding and belief about TRIZ.

You can register yourself to this mailing list : http://lists.topica.com/lists/triz

I hope I'm pragmatic in thinking here. Ideally we all want to be innovative and a better thinker, solution (cheap, cost effective etc..) for our problems. The result is what going to make sense for anyone, not exactly the way you achieve that result, as long as it is generated using this basic platform. Altshuller provided a wonderful platform to do that (I have read that he always emphasized Creative Imagination, not "TRIZ imagination") with his (and disciples) years of research. Use the fundamental of his methodologies and use the way you want; why bother how others are doing this, flavoring with other techniques, how someone put this in Wiki.

I really appreciate the philosophical angle of TRIZ as it explains the natural phenomena so nicely articulated. Be an independent thinker by using this amazing tool box, and be innovative. Share what you know with others, use this with other methodologies you are familiar with, bring new methodologies, approach and process... Let us use the platform like this (mailing list) for a healthy knowledge sharing and creating bigger awareness of TRIZ..

Pedal Laptop - Response from my TRIZ friend

2008-02-10T22:49:00.000-08:00

One of my regular blog reader responded to my earlier posting, pedal laptop(he gave me a different perspective of classical TRIZ responding to my blog and emails. I'm fortunate to have a friend like him and learn more about TRIZ in a short time frame). His response here is very interesting and I thought to put my views across and also invite others to comment.

---------------------------------------

It's an interesting idea to use pedal mechanism of sewing machine as the energy source for laptop. The secondary problem of noise is solvable by means of sound-absorbent materials' use; the mechanism itself can be made from reinforced plastics. They are "silent" in comparison with metal parts.

This solution is good for short period of time, for example, in case of energy interruption. But I can't imagine it in the office in the everyday life. Employees use their own physical energy to feed computers (it ought to be reimbursed, isn't it?) - how to pay them for this function?

There are differences in physical conditions between men and women, between healthy people and people with disabilities. If from the technical point of view your idea is viable, but for economical and social aspects it has a big uncertainness.

And from the point of view of trends of evolution - you've suggested to go into opposite direction for trend of human being elimination out from engineering system. Through all its history, the mankind eliminates human being out of ES...

Problem can be solved by the increasing of energy consumption! Paradox? No, because I mean, more intensive use of computers for development more economical technology and all aspects of our life. Ideality can be rised even if resources' consumption rises; but useful results ought to be rised faster.

Sincerely,

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Blogs and stock market (Recent developments)

2008-02-07T06:10:00.000-08:00

After publishing my last blog, I did a self reflection on myself w.r.t to the way I blog. The interesting pattern is that my blogs are like today's stock market index. My friend Navneet
completed his 200th blog..!! Great achievement indeed. And, what's more important is that every blog he is putting up there are thought provoking and intellectually stimulating to me. He indeed is a "lean" guy..!!

Coming back; last blog entry was kinda kick start, and now that I will probably be adding couple in next few days (thus this..). Albeit I wish to follow Navneet, but I really don't think that I will do justice to my blogs if I attempt so.. :)

Very interesting developments in last couple of months gone by.

1. First innovation unconferencing, Barcamp in India is coming up. The spark came from my friend & colleague, Shahnawaz after he organized KAMP last Nov. He inspired me to initiate this, and great to see the interest level. I hope this will bring a different perspective in sharing and collaborating on innovation related areas. BTW - This logo a quick fix, the black "i" represents "we can fly if we innovate" :-)
2. TRIZ India Forum - We have a new look, and new identity now. I don't know if you can interpret the logo, because it is again a quick fix I put together in an hour for using the "Free resource" to create more publicity and awareness through Barcamp
- The logo represents the STC (Size, Time & Cost). In the globalized world, ideas are unlimited if we don't put ourselves in a box of constraints..!!

3. TRIZ India Conference - I hope we have a TRIZ India conference this year. The news of recession is still looming, but I hope things will turnaround soon, and the recession may be seen as an opportunity for companies to innovate.

Pedal(d) laptop (desktop?)..Combining problems for single solution

2008-02-07T03:15:00.000-08:00

After a long time I’m publishing something; I don’t know what happened, but I can’t give an excuse myself as busy or other work etc., for not blogging for such a long time..!! Anyway, whatever is happening, it is happening for good.. J

Ok, this is something funny, and perhaps can align with Trends of Technological system evolution, but turning upside down, (Reverse trend?). This is triggered me when I read an article published on my intranet today morning, but also mixed with some undigested thoughts of "MicroTrends" I was reading yesterday night.

The summary of article I read is this, that IT industry emits more CO2 than Airline industry, (directly?)indirectly by burning more oil, and whatever to generate the power to keep millions of computers up and running. More powerful the computer we use, more power it consumes..

As I said other interesting read for me nowadays are socio/economic, geo and cultural trends, (Anthropology is so interesting!!). One such trend is deteriorating health of IT workers across the globe; obesity, arthritis, and the list will go on.. I’m a victim too.. :(

So, two different problems; and both we need solutions, both are important as well. The origin of both problems are same(IT industry), but the search of solutions may be in two different plane. One is to look at how we can reduce the power consumption (switch of the computers if you are not using, turn off the AC, put off the lights (and let the natural lights come in), technological solution – green computing), and next is improving the health of employees; (gym facilities, yoga classes, meditation, herbal foods, ergonomic designs…)

So here is what I would like to have…

Well, the above idea is purely my imagination, because the picture of sewing machine just flashed in my mind when I started thinking about the ideality of the first problem (power usage). Ideally I would like to have a computer that does not use any power, or generating self power. We aren’t there yet commercially, but then I started visualizing the $100 laptop. Sitting in my cubicle with an uneasy leg forcing me to change my sitting position every now and then, and visualizing both problems perhaps tickled my subconscious mind and stored patterns, and loaded the picture of sewing machine I used to see from my childhood. (BTW – I’m a spatial thinker). Back in my village, I used to wonder how fast my next door uncle operated this machine using his leg whole day (of course using no electricity), yet he is very healthy. Here, we IT workers facing both problems, excess power, and poor health!! So, this should be an ideal solution for us!!

Adding a Framework

Let me see if the process of generating this idea can be repeatable by putting a framework to it.

What did I do?
1. Combined two distinct problems because the origin was same – A 9 Windows on IT workers defining system as “The bad part of me working in IT”?.

2. Looked at the IFR and resources

a. What is the IFR – Self powered computer, and good health..

3. Looked at a different industry for a completely different solution. To map this to the framework, I can go back to TRIZ contradictions and principles for the first problem; (Power of my computer Vs Object generated harmful?) and 3 TRIZ principles (Taking out, Parameter changes, Mechanical vibration).

4. Taking out – Take out the power source itself, but I still need this laptop to be up!

5. Mechanical vibration & parameter changes.. Obvious, right?

Ok. Now another problem to solve.. Reducing the sound of operating the pedals..!!!

Tata Nano - Ideality Redefined?

2008-01-10T07:39:00.001-08:00

'Since, a promise is a promise; the standard dealer version of Tata Nano will cost Rs 1 lakh, (About $2500.00)! Ratan Tata launching the much awaited Tata Nano, the cheapest car in the world, said. Getting over with my feel good factor that India is redefining the "Ideality trend" (explaining in detail below), my intriguing mind makes me think this - What would be the profit are they really making on this car? Is this an achievement for self gratification for meeting the promise they made? I want to believe it is not...

I have wanted to write this for a while, about the possible innovations anticipated in this new brave attempt by Tata; just have been waiting for this day, because seeing is believing! Post conceiving this idea, they had announced this new low cost car as the replacement for a Two-wheeler. Sounds like it wasn’t just a statement to attract the customer base! A day before the Nano launch, the announcement came from another Indian company, Bajaj, launching yet another small car, not a 1lakh, perhaps 150K one. And this company is (was?) dominating Indian two-wheeler market for quite some time.

Here goes my TRIZing interpretation

- - Trend – Moving to ideality – Comfort of a car with less cost (Especially considering from a 2 wheeler owner could not afford a car yet). Ideality =Useful function/harmful function + cost
- The law of transition to higher level system (from a two-wheeler perspective) - The development (translate here as consumption as well) of a mono-system (a two wheeler) will move to super-system for further development. (Consider from non-technical aspects, such as need, comfort etc)

Not over yet – Many inherent TRIZ principles to be seen here;

Obvious one’s are –
Taking out (Dashboard is an example, removed several unwanted (?) stuffs)
Other way around – The storage space (trunk) is on the front

Advanced one –
14 – Spheroidality, Curvature – Look at the roof of the car. It is not flat, but there are ribs to provide strength.

I will wait to see this car in action for further TRIZing. Whatever, I liked the name, Nano.. I would like to see "Tata" as an "Apple" for automobiles!!

The Long Nose of Innovation

2008-01-06T07:12:00.000-08:00

First article attracted my eyes in this year; The Long Nose of Innovation from BusinessWeek. Biil Buxton, Principal Scientist - Microsoft, is explaining about his view point (good to see that in the section of VIEW POINT; not a Theory!) about yet another concept(?), Long Nose of Innovation!

I think it does make some sense in what he wanted to convey. Certainly innovation is not just a Wow moment, but rather is an outcome of a long running process. It starts from idea, then refining them, implementing them, value proposition to the benefiter, indeed a long process. ..

Ideas are free (There is also a book on this subject)- An idea as an idea has not much of a value, until someone takes it ahead; either for generating new ideas or to implement the ideas. However, I think an idea to become an innovation, there is also the TIMING associated with it. Bill revisited the history of mouse; though one can argue that to justify another standpoint, it may also due to the timing and perhaps little bit of context around it. A mouse in 1965/68 may be too early for the market considering all the potential features. Other technologies may not have evolved to utilize all features of a mouse.

Anyway, coming back to what I wanted to say; this article is important to bring a view point about the TRIZ – Technological system evolution. According to bill “Any technology that is going to have significant impact over the next 10 years is already at least 10 years old”. Yet the emergence of new technological system is still taking time. I remember the Nano-technology as an example here!

I believe proper synchronization of evolution of technological system is important here bringing the new technology to a $Billion industry and customer base. The technology has evolved in the mouse to cite an example from what we have seen (BTW – I saw the first mouse in 1992 only!) till now. It is so advanced in the ideality curve, that you can achieve all function of mouse without a mouse! Mono-bi-poly-field all are already out there. However why don’t we still see many out there equipped with the new technology?

I believe, the technology system evolution of the mouse must be aligned with the evolution of other system that it is used with. Everything around has its own S-Curve, and identifying synchronization point of S-Curve's (I meant technological system evolution) will define the INNOVATION (Not INVENTION!)..

MindBlogging...Welcome to 2008

2008-01-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

Using contradictions as solutions for contradictions..

2007-12-31T01:17:00.000-08:00

My “Anonymous” friend posted a comment for my blog about TRIZCON and Indian connection. A point, thought provoking, and what a TRIZnik might probably trivialize.. After a long discussion with my friend, (so now you know, not Anonymous to me!) I started pondering over it, from TRIZ angle.

Can we use contradiction as solution for solving another contradiction?? Well, I’m not out of my mind, but the interesting discussion I have had with my friend triggered some intellectually involving philosophical thoughts. TRIZ is an answer for solving contradictions (read problems) without compromising anything. However a solution today may be a problem of tomorrow (System thinking), and where there is a problem there is a contradiction. When we get a breakthrough solution using whatever methodology, we perhaps fall in to the conclusive state of mind, ‘this is the best solution’, and no thinking works beyond, especially if we have used some techniques, like TRIZ. However, looking at the solution in detail, we should perhaps see a contradiction in it!

I do see some merit in this line of thinking, especially applying TRIZ in non-technical subjects. I will post another blog trying to prove this point.

In this fast paced, multi-dynamic world of business, today’s solution is inadequate for today’s problem. The context is changed by the time we get solutions. Change is unavoidable; changes are faster than I breathe; everything around me will shift, left or right, top or bottom, may be like an interconnected gear system, small and big gears. A slight movement of one gear far from my sight will force me to shift my position; and my view is changed, I see something new I haven’t seen before!

Eliminating one contradiction may open multitude of contradictions in this interconnected, evolving business systems. Instead of looking for the solutions for my today’s problem, let us look at contradictions of tomorrow!!

Well, the last blog for this year end here with enough fuzziness..!! May the New Year bring more such intricate and eccentric thoughts, not just to me, but others out there as well!!

Thank you and Wish you all a very happy new TRIZit! Year ahead..

Resources again...This time for service innovation?

2007-12-21T22:23:00.000-08:00

One of my earlier posting talked about using “resources” for developing innovative products. This week BusinessWeek article showcased an emerging trend (that’s what they call it), Cloud Computing!! Interestingly, the article talks about Google, Yahoo etc letting to open up their huge computing power and storage space to the world. Analogy is “it's the computing equivalent of the evolution in electricity a century ago when farms and businesses shut down their own generators and bought power instead from efficient industrial utilities”.

Amazon has pioneered in this and even making money out of it. Now that Google, Microsoft, Yahoo coming to market this may even get commoditized. I wouldn’t surprise to see Intel and AMD manufacture high–end processors only for handful of companies across the world, setting up huge data center and we would buy computing power from them..! Anyway, that’s futuristic. It could even be “Other way” around; each one of our personal computer, mobile phone work as a part of Google data center (Remember SETI!)

From the TRIZ angle, I see the concept of using “Existing, cheap/low cost/underutilized/free resources” is a definite opportunity for innovation. We have resources all around us, but we don’t know; we have resources inside our system, but we don’t consider that for other activities which they are not originally intended for. At times even the harmful elements in the system are resources for solving our problems. Then the question boils down to; how do we identify them?

Draw a 9 Window, and identify your system-present
List everything you can think about in your sub-system present
Look everything in your super-system present
Identify resources unused, not effectively used, cheap/low cost. Even “people emotions” are resources!
Think about the future – What do you going to do with these resources in the future? Can you use them for something else?

TRIZCON 2008 and Indian Connection!!

2007-12-20T00:05:00.000-08:00

Finally all (most of the) the TRIZCON 2008 abstracts are out.. Check out here

35 abstracts in total, and interesting to see the Asian connection, especially Indian..!! There are 15 papers coming only from Asia; India, China, Taiwan and Korea. What is more interesting is about 6 papers only from India!

I'm very happy to see Karthik and Prashant's papers as well. I look forward to see them at TRIZCON 2008. And another good news, and I'm so proud of is that Navneet is taking one tutorial!!

Another interesting observation; NO paper from Japan!! Even the regular and one of the most passionate TRIZnik from Japan, Toru san, is also missing in the list. It looks like they are more successful in running the Japan TRIZ conference started last year. It looks like western world is going to miss the practitioners TRIZ success.

I'm very happy to see the number of papers from MindTree this time. The first year after I joined we presented one paper (From my VP), and last year 3 and this year 4. I hope to get more in future, not just for TRIZCON, but other TRIZ conferences across the world.

It is however disappointing to see the number of quality papers coming down (from the abstracts). Comparing to ETRIA and Japan TRIZ conference, TRIZCON is yet to evolve bringing quality paper. I do see some progress from last year though..

Good to see Amir Roggel is speaking this time, as a key note speaker. Perhaps the best TRIZ facilitator in a corporate environment. Over 1000 people have been trained under his leadership at Intel. I'm glad to be associated with him for a new Industry TRIZ Learning initiative by him.

I look forward to the completion of mine and my colleagues papers. I'm grateful working with them, without them many of my achievements couldn't have reached here. I also thank my friends and other TRIZnik's around me, the friends some of whom I have never met, but working with them by co-authoring some papers.

Hope to see you all at TRIZCON 2008..!

Innovation Prediction interpreted..

2007-12-18T02:56:00.000-08:00

As Navneet said, December sounds like the month of predictions.. McKinsey, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune etc...

Interestingly the BW prediction for 2008 also came out as Innovation Predictions..!! Well, the first thought, can we predict innovation? Or should it just have been prediction for 2008? Nevertheless, many predictions are worth noticing for the sake of it and mapping back in the end of next year..

Can we even bring the analogy of quality movement happened decades back for innovation yet? Are we really matured enough to be conclusive? What is hindering me to construct a belief around this is the infinite versions of understanding innovation... It has a context sensitivity unlike quality, it is revolved around the human brain, and after all it is about self realization..!

My 2 cents on some of these predictions..

1. Distributing cocreation

The emergence of social networking, crowdsourcing etc indicates this trend is already. Participative innovation is in line and I'm certain companies benefiting out of this, without much investment. Corporates are already exploiting this by opening up idea generation from the public.
My take - Social networking is going to be in the realm for distributing co-creation. More than unsolicited co-creation, we should be able to see co-creation happening within the social networking community.

2. Using consumers as innovators

Not new again. Companies like P&G is already on the race. Cisco, Philips and perhaps many others are new entrants. However, what we can see in this area is a systematic way consumers can become innovators. I believe the existing process and systems are not scaled enough to tap the potential in this area..

My take - The necessity is the mother of invention and Innovation. Who's necessity is not questionable, because it has to be consumers. We should see more systems and process in place in the coming here to tap the unknown knowledge base of consumers to create new products systematically. Perhaps TRIZ is going to help there..

In general, I see the Innovation is going to be widely talked and over hyped word next year. However, by end of next year, we should see a change in interpreting Innovation in a right way. People will start looking at Innovation from different angle, and a lot to come on this from a change in paradigm of thinking from the business leaders..

The Evolution of Unconferencing...

2007-12-17T07:40:00.000-08:00

unconferencing in blogs … How about that?? Well, puzzled for sure, right?

Last week I attended (literally), possibly the biggest unconferencing event ever happened in a corporate environment. Over 1500 employees from my organization gathered on a chilly Sat morning, eager to know what is this Unconferencing, despite my fellow colleague Shahnawaz and team sent out several emails, and video explaining about what is this about. This is my second Unconferencing experience. Last month I attended KAMP, a Knowledge Management Bar camp organized at our premises. Being a beginner, I kept quiet most part of that session to experience it first.

This time, I wanted to embrace the new trend of “individualism” by actively participating as a moderator, as a participant in this unconferencing event. At the end of it, I’m reflecting on each one of them, and it is ALL ABOUT INDIVIDUALISM. Self organized, participative and whatever we can call in that way..

What I observed

– People are so creative that I was surprised to hear some of the ideas being discussed in some sessions, and ironically their creativity completely (don’t beat me up for this statement, certainly exaggerating a little)off-the-stage in their work. I think we should bring the UNCONFERENCING in programming, testing and whatever they do back in their cubicle..!!

-Questioning – Having attended several large organization meeting with senior managers and chairman, I had started believing only the “apex” category of people talk without reluctance and ask questions to them. I had even started categorizing them. But I’m puzzled now, after I experienced the way people talking in front of the Chairman (Yes!) and senior management about crazy ideas, and questioning so many things…

- Nothing changed, except the platform, and of course the mindset!

I don’t intent to repeat what others are blogged about this, read more..

Shahnawaz blog

Suresh's take on the final day.

Shahnawaz's photo take on the final day.

Let me do some Map2TRIZ now..

-There absolutely has the trend part of TRIZ is coming to picture here.

1. Law of increasing dynamism (flexibility) – The way people interact with each other have started to become more flexible, capable of adaption to varying performance regimes, changing environmental conditions, and of multi-functionality.

In other way, from one state system àMulti-state systemàContinuously variable system, unconferencing!

Five Common Mistakes in Innovation

2007-12-06T22:07:00.000-08:00

Business Week article in the month of Oct is really thought provoking. I've personally seen and heard this everywhere. People talking about "Let us try to do like...", think about "Steve Jobs or XYZ.." I truly believe these are the real mistakes one makes in their innovation effort. It is about understanding ourself and people we interact with in the organization, and the self realization as what we can do, and what we are capable of. Coming up with an innovation strategy should not be biased to any of the existing, innovative organization.

Let us not try to emulate a 3M or Apple, but come up with our own way of doing things by understanding our culture and environment. Encouraging creative thinking and experiment mindset is all what we need..

Innovation by using "Resource"

2007-11-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

Ellen Domb sent this interesting Business Week news clipping. What an innovation? Let's interpret this from TRIZ point of view..

The concept of "Resources" is a fascinating branch in TRIZ. According to TRIZ everything around is resources for us. Anything that is free/low cost, easily attainable to solve our problem can be considered as resources. We can find resources inside our system (sub-system), and resources there in the immediate surrounding of our problem area, and of course maximum resources from the super-system, which we don't even consider or rather scoff at it!

Mobile Phones, Immobile Cars

Until now there have been few good ways for drivers to find out in real time about traffic accidents or rush-hour jams on their routes. Radio traffic reports can be hit-or-miss, and most local governments have been loath to invest in roadside sensors costing $100,000 a mile in order to provide more timely information.

Atlanta's AirSage says it has a way to get the job done. It uses proprietary software algorithms that measure the number, speed, and density of cell-phone signals in cars along the road. The more concentrated the signals, the heavier the traffic volume. In 46 cities in the U.S., AirSage receives a continuous feed of radio-signal data (with the identifying information stripped out) from Sprint (S ). It then looks for high signal density and slow vehicle speeds, which indicate a traffic jam.

For now, AirSage is selling its real-time analysis to local governments as well as to radio and TV stations in the 46 markets. But the company might someday provide this data in color-coded maps--marking roads green if traffic is flowing and red where it's congested--to cell phones and car navigation systems. The data could also help reroute traffic in dire storms.

By Dean Foust

Casae Study: Design Features for Next Generation Technology Products

2007-11-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

One of my paper is published here in TRIZ Journal

Design Features for Next Generation Technology Products

Although this case study talks about a specific technology, I believe the process is more important and can be replicated to any situation.

This is just one set of techniques, and after presenting this to TRIZCON 2007, I looked back and thought about other techniques I could have used to design more such features.

Launching TRIZ India Forum

2007-11-08T22:08:00.000-08:00

We see TRIZ in India is a goldmine. There are people around passionate about TRIZ, perhaps implementing it in their work, but keeping a low profile. There are people around, would like to know more, and be a part of TRIZ thinking. But, we don't have a system keeping all of us connected, collaborate and share.

So here is an attempt to connect all TRIZnik's around..

TRIZ India Forum is a NOT FOR PROFIT informal group we would like to start with. We look forward to discuss TRIZ, share common problems and find solutions using TRIZ, guide people interested in TRIZ.

If you are interested, and would like to join this group, please send an email to trizindiaforum@gmail.com Or contact me personally - prakash@ipenablers.com

We have been discussing about this for a while, doing something in India to make TRIZ part of Indian innovation journey. Looking at the trends, we believe India is going to be an innovation hub. We have reached the maximum developments in the system (like outsourcing work); now new developments will happen at the super-system level (TRIZ trend - Law of transition to higher level system), and just imagine the opportunity out there..

We used "Resources" to find the cheap, no cost, readily available place to start with, Blog..
We consider you as a resource - As a sponsor, as a connector, as a maven as a sales person (Refer Tipping Point)

You will see some interesting stuffs going around in the TRIZ India Forum, discussions, virtual meeting, common problems.

ETRIA Conference 2007

2007-11-08T22:00:00.000-08:00

This is something I shouldn't have missed..But...

Anyway, Ellen Domb shared a live commentary about European TRIZ association conference held in Frankfurt, Germany this week. Read here

Thank you Ellen. I visualized me being there while reading your 'conferencelogue'

It is fascinating to see how TRIZ is spreading across the world. People from all around the world is sharing success stories, educational institution around the world started teaching TRIZ. It looks like TRIZ is going to be the answer for "systematic thinking" and "effective innovation" for the future.

Solving problems in India's retail growth..TRIZ study

2007-10-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

Kerala Government banned multinationals retail entry to the state. Farmers pelted stones at Reliance Fresh (A retail arm started by Reliance) outlet in North India. Maharashtra state government is planning to ban retail stores by multinational companies.

Look at the other side of the coin...

Bharti-Walmart joint venture acquire floor space to setup their retail shop..
Mahindra and Mahindra join retail bandwagon.

As a developing country, we are happy to have FDI flows in to our country, providing job opportunity, changing the way people lives. However, for many at the bottom of the pyramid, this is losing their daily wages, jobs and lands. It is important for a country like us to effectively balance out the growth and the pain at the bottom.

As I started analyzing this situation systematically, there seems to be an interesting contradiction coming out from the overall problem. Considering the nature of this, many will consider this as a “Wicked problem”. However, if we can see a inherent contradiction in this, TRIZ is a way to go according to me. Before defining the contradiction, let us apply IFR.

Looking this particular problem, what stands out is the number of stake holders involved in..

- Government of India – Doing good by opening up the foreign investments in retail

- Consumers – End customer so attached to the “mall culture” now

- Companies – Successful rate of growth, growing economy, purchasing power of individuals – There lies the gold mine..

- Finally, what we see as the problem element (from the above news clipping) – The poor old “kinarawala” shop owners (Owners of small shops besides the foot path)

Let us try defining the problem using Ideal Final Result briefly..

Each stake holders has their own ideal final result

- Government – Attracting foreign investment

- Consumers – Cheap, one-stop-shop, experience of shopping etc..

- Companies – Of course money..

- The small shop owners – better day-by-day living

If I start thinking about the ideality, what really popping out here is the change in consumer mindset; they would like to experience the swanky shopping mall, getting their goods cheaper, and not just shopping, but a “shoppertainment”. This is an opportunity for the big companies, since the purchasing power of consumers are growing, and the current infrastructure growth in this area (new shops, facilities) is not so good, investment is this sector is like entering to a gold mine. Between, there are the traditional shop owners living their lives for several years completely depending on the consumers shopping needs.

It looks like the consumers will have to reside in the super-system of our problem.

Look at this issue from the retail investor’s (big companies) perspective. They know the consumers are not completely satisfied with these small shop owners, and they enjoy shopping malls, cheap, quality services etc. They also want to make money from the untapped potential market.

From the small shop owner’s side: They can not influence the consumer behavior. They will also have difficulties in protesting against the government for a long time. They do know that they have the problems providing the consumer one-stop-shop, mall atmosphere.

Having analyzed the problem from retail investors and small shop owner’s angle, we can assume the solutions can come out from the government. As a growing economy, for encouraging investments, government can not put a hold on the issue of displacement of several small shop owners. At the same time, people elected the government, and it is their duty to protect the people, where the small shop owners are among them. There comes a physical contradiction: Allow investment in the retail area Vs does not allow them to setup the shops.

Before getting into the solution space using principles, we can expand the IFR asking more questions favorable to “Allow investment question” so that we have better solution space created.

- What is stopping government (or what is the obstacle government should solve)

o SOHO’s are displaced, and they protest against the entry of big companies

- Why is it stopping?

o The SOHO’s are displaced because they are not able to satisfy the need of growing consumers, better facilities like the big retailers.

From the “Does not allow investment…”

- What is stopping government to not to allow investment

o Economy is growing, purchasing power of consumer is growing, not enough infrastructure etc..

Now, having got this physical contradiction, let us ask some questions as;

Where do we (as a government) want to allow investment in retail?

- Where maximum potential in terms of consumers spending money

Where do we want them not to allow to investment in retail?

- Where maximum displacement will happen w.r.t the SOHO’s.

When do we want the investment to be allowed?

- When there is an enough opportunities (Growing economy, purchasing power, consumer demand, need etc)

When do we want the investment not be allowed?

- When the SOHO’s can satisfy the need of consumers, give the taxes etc back to the government

Well, the process described here needs further elaboration using 9-Windows, more IFR process and resources. I’m doing them in my mind…

Now having got a bigger dimension to the problem, we can perhaps jump into the solution space using TRIZ principles. What we need to keep in mind is about the parties involved in the physical contradiction for solutions. Remember, we need solution without compromising any..

As a physical contradiction, we have the following category:

Segmentation in space – Principles provide here are, segmentation, taking out, local quality, another dimension, other way around, curvature, nested doll, flexible shells/thin films, asymmetry, intermediary, copying

Segmentation in time – This set of principles should be considered as an improvement steps for solutions generated by the above principle set.

Solutions:

Ok. Without using TRIZ principles, I’m sure you all have generated several solutions by now. If you have, then map them back to any principles if you can, otherwise read on..

I’m not trying to describe solutions using each principle here, but here are something interesting from my view.

Taking out : Take out the “kinarawala” shops. Well, take out means, not just taking out, but take out them and do something good for them as well.

Nested Doll: Put “Kinarawala” shops to big malls.. (I’m excited with this solution from practical point of view..)Using segmentation along with this, a big retail company can provide facilities inside their mall for the SOHO's to sell their goods..

Another dimension: Use the “Kinarawalas” expertise in dealing consumers inside the mall. Use them as sales people

Other solutions I have in my mind is perhaps from a consumer point of view, and I do not know the implementability.

Why TRIZ?

2007-10-12T07:48:00.000-07:00

A question I often forced to answer is, why TRIZ? I felt the need of expressing my view point and here is a summary..

Human mind is capable of solving problems relying on their past experience, what they have learned, heard and seen around them, (Fig 1).A solution for a problem thus emerging from what we know. However, there is a huge knowledge base around us, that is; what we know we don’t know, what we really don’t know, what have never heard or seen before.
We are good at deriving solutions from the knowledge base of what we know. And, many times, we are satisfied with them, but with a compromise. Our normal thinking pattern is enough to find solutions to a problem from our known knowledge base. However solutions from what we know will mostly be traditional, biased by our experience and other emotions associated with it. How do we get innovative and creative solutions from what we don’t know? TRIZ is a methodology with several tools enabling our human mind to break the psychological inertia and get to know about solutions from the unknown knowledge base of whole world.

Fig 1

TRIZ is a methodology derived from patents. A patent is awarded when there is a unique solution. If patents are solutions for something, there has been a problem it resolved. Thus, patent is a database of innovative solutions for various problems from different domain, industries and geographies. Now, can we get a solution for our problem from the unknown world of problems and solution through patents? TRIZ attempts to answer this providing a tool box for thinking in this line.

TRIZ is based on the philosophy of most problems are contradictions. As a natural problem solver, we solve problems by compromising the contradictions. The fundamental of TRIZ is that if your problem can be abstracted to contradictions level, you can find solutions easily, may be from another inventions. The theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) also emphasizes the basic problems in human cognition and thinking styles. Generalizing this, a problem defined well has solutions attached to it. The TRIZ tool box suggests several techniques for problem definitions, before taking one to the solution space.

To illustrate this better, let’s look at various functions across our organization. All of us work in an organization with our without realizing that we are solving problems day to day. Be it software developments, testing, marketing, sales, administration, HR etc... Problems are complex, and simple. Simple problems, we have solutions already and no need to explicitly involve our minds to exercise deep thinking. When it comes to a problem that is complex in nature, we start thinking, first individually, and then in group; so called brainstorming. End of this exercise, we have solutions from what we know, have heard and seen. Let us look at this; a complex people management issue has been solved by our HR department. Now, can we learn from that and implement a solution for our Administration or facility management issue? Forget even thinking in that line. So called functional silos will not even permit us to think so. Also the huge psychological inertia will restrict our way of thinking in that dimension, and we start looking for solutions from our world of “Administration” of what we know, have heard, seen and experienced. Look at several other functions, departments and teams across a huge organization; aren’t we re-inventing the wheel for every problem we face? Aren’t we wasting our valuable time and money for generate same set of solutions across multiple problems? Well, at the first look we will laugh at it. But think about from the TRIZ point of view.

Well the fact is that I can’t say so simply like the way I mentioned above..

We can’t blame ourselves. It is certainly not easy to immediately find a relationship b/w a people related problem solution with the facility management issue faced by administration. A level of abstraction is required to extract the pattern of solution implemented in one domain to other. And, this level of abstraction perhaps is the most complex part of TRIZ as well.

Further Innovation to 20x20 cricket...

2007-10-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

So, I started keeping my ears open to hear cricket news after several years. The recent 20x20 matches certainly shaken up my spirit of cricket after long time. I believe this is the match for new generation, including me. I think the QUICK RESULT is something that make this match really interesting. Of course some new innovations too. After India's victory, I started thinking how we can make this match perhaps more interesting. Here are certain TRIZ principles and my ideas..

Read more about the T20 learning from Navneet's blog here..

13 - The Other way around - The limited over tempt batsman to hit right from the first over. How about the 5th to10th over keeping a restriction that the ball should not go beyond the circle without a pitch. This may help the batsman to control themselves facing the ball. Lot of learning, concentration is certainly involved here. There could be less number of fielders standing inside the circle compare to the normal overs, so that it ballers learn to control the ball better.
The knowledge base for this idea is the "urban" cricket played around the streets and gallies around cities across India. Due to the limited space, if you hit beyond a point you are considered out..!!
35 - Parameter changes - Make right hand batsman to bat left hand for few overs, and vice versa!. Will be great learning for players to face spinners. I remember the way K. Srikanth used to play shots..

Well, I know you can go crazy generating ideas.. Keep thinking. Some interesting principles could be "Blessing in disguise", "Asymmetry"..

`If you don`t innovate, someone else will`

2007-10-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

I read this Q&A with Robert Tucker, President, The Innovation Resources. An interesting read, and I'm glad that a thought leader speaking something what I always believe myself . An interesting definition for Innovation indeed.

Quoting him"A company is the result of its ideas. When the leadership shows serious intent for innovation, it percolates to all levels and you build a culture of innovation. Behaviour that gets rewarded gets repeated.

So your managers need to reward people who are taking risks, people who are experimenting with ideas, people who are being creative and are attempting to do things better. When you reward such behaviour you are sure to create a culture of innovation.

People by nature are creative, but you as an organisation need to be able to tap it. Employees are either being creative at their work place or are going home to their sports, passions, interests and spending their creativity there.

Companies need to ask people to be creative, and praise employees who try things differently, irrespective of the outcome. I spend most of my day asking managers to stroke their chin and ask their teams politely if there is a better way to do what they are doing. Most managers never ask this question, or they ask it in a very confrontational manner."

Taking cue from earlier thread about creativity and innovation (read Creaovation - Problem solving),I believe an organization mostly depending on people and their brain (than skills?) for solving customer’s problem, the process of innovation has to evolve from the people than from the system. Innovation as an umbrella activity for an organization has many dimensions to it; creating an eco-system, culture, more importantly tangible benefit not just in terms of money, but quality, stake holders satisfaction and employee satisfaction. Framing it through the IFR; for an organization, innovation is about reaching to the IFR of all those above (quality, money, satisfaction etc..) but by considering the interim IFR of each separately. So, in order to reach to the IFR of innovation, there could be multiple IFR in between need to be targeted.

"Creaovation" - Can we replace creativity and innovation?

2007-10-02T05:32:00.000-07:00

Creativity and innovation has been extensively and interchangeably used in today's world. What I have noticed is that if I read innovation somewhere, I see the word creativity is also there, and vice versa. Why so?

Is it so that creativity leads to innovation? Or innovation leads to creativity? Can you be innovative without creative? All non-innovators are not creative enough? Innovative mindset will make you creative? I will have another bunch of questions, but I do not know the answers for all.

In my capacity of creating awareness among engineers (being specific – young engineers) about creativity and innovation, I often find it surprising as what they have understood about innovation, creativity, invention etc.

According to me, the root of creativity and innovation is problem solving. I’m creative in doing something when I have a problem to solve. Even as a creative photographer, artist, musician, I’ m attempting to solve a problem, a problem of my subconscious mind.

I’m not a great photographer, but let me try to explain this assuming myself a “creative” (read again, ASSUMING) photographer. I like to photograph; but not the way others do. I look at things from different angle, totally different angle; people looking at me taking photographs will think I’m crazy. Some time I’m fortunate getting some good picture. (And I call them as creative photographs) Well, I’m being a creative photographer at times. What is that problem I’m trying to solve my conscious mind can not define at all?

I have seen people taking photograph. Some of my friends are professional photographers and they take great pictures with great detail. I have also seen photographs that people talk as fantastic, but for me it looks nothing but an ordinary photograph at first sight. When they explain about the angle, colors, lights, illumination etc, I probably understand what is great in that picture. Having seen pictures like that(ordinary at the first look), and me like taking photographs, my subconscious mind has defined a problem, more like “how to take a photograph that does not look normal at the first attempt”. Is that a real problem for me and my conscious mind? Not at all; photography is my hobby, and I reach to a camera once in a while, mostly when I visit a new place etc. But, I call those pictures as creative (Again, “I” CALL), and I have solved a problem my subconscious mind created.

Look at innovation. Taking a creative idea to the mass is probably is innovation. Of course commercial benefit is more talked. Aren’t we trying to solve a problem? When Apple launched iPhone, there were people waiting overnight to book the first one. What is that problem Apple solved? There are over 50 different companies manufacturing cell phones. Over 300 varieties of cell phones with great features are available across the world. There are more features in a cell phone that one will never even know that exists in their cell phone. Despite all, iPhone created a big buzz. Well, there could be answers, because iPod, Apple etc. But still, I believe they have solved some problems my conscious and subconscious mind has defined based our experience of using (hearing and seeing too) cell phones. I don’t have an iPhone yet, but I think by purchasing one, I’m trying to solve the problem “unusual interface”, “wow, he got an iPhone view from others” etc.. There could be more like extended battery (the LCD turn off the moment I bring that to my ear), tilting the picture when I tilt the phone…

Another perspective of looking innovation is through patents. A patent is awarded when there is a unique solution. If patents are solutions for something, there has been a problem it resolved. Read any patent, you can see the way they have described the problem before explaining the solutions.

So, we all are creative and innovative, because we solve problems. I hope we have a word called “Creaovation” to replace both creativity and innovation, a dictionary meaning as problem solving..!!

Self reflection is always good..

2007-10-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

I’m out from the cocoon. It was intentional; I wanted to keep low profile on several areas, and this was one; my blog! It was good to do a self reflection and evaluation to see where I’m now. I’m glad that new learning came as successes, failures (more than success) and opportunities… I think it is time to surface back and write something.

Last couple of months went by many inspiring (and of course uninspiring too!!) incidents. The self realization that awoke me was how little I knew about TRIZ, why did I waste such a long time just by reading and waiting for opportunities to apply them, why didn’t I write down my valuable thoughts etc.. In between, what I also learned was the opportunities; an ocean of opportunities waiting out there for TRIZ and application of them in today’s world.

Last few months were eventful from my work perspective too.. New projects across domains; successes and many failures. I got some opportunities to understand the true fact of a recent article published in BW. GE is giving less priority in 6 Sigma and more on innovation. (Read this news), where as 3M (one of the best case study companies w.r.t innovation) has taken up 6 Sigma more seriously and seems to be losing innovation. (No offence to 6 Sigma lovers out there.. pardon me if this really hurts you). I was asked to step in couple of 6 sigma projects for idea generation. Well, this was something I had completely ignored in my past from a self-push perspective. I knew it is not going to fit my kind of job. But, this time it was a pull, and I also felt the timing (Let me keep that timing secret). I was called during idea generation phase for organization related functions. Team shared me a set of RC’s they came up with and we started discussing ideas. I wish I could have involved in problem definition phase before deriving the RC’s. Several TRIZ techniques could have been used to do some justice to the problem definition phase. I believe perception mapping technique, 9-Windows and IFR should have helped defining problems better. Since many in the team were new to TRIZ, I decided to use some of the 40 principles directly, without even talking as TRIZ as Po’s (Provocative operators) and team generated ideas using them. Other techniques to explore the solutions were analogies, brain writing etc. Resources could have been the ideal technique to generate interesting and implementable solutions, but many could not appreciate the resources (I think people ignore what is cheap and available by putting a imaginative, perceptive boundary to it..).

I can’t really comment the benefit yet. But, what I learned by now is that people create a mental boundary as where they need solutions from. That imaginative boundary is so strong that they always look at the implementation possibility even before generating ideas. And, what happens at the end, there are very few creative solutions and another 6 sigma project scope down the lane. A more realistic approach for solution generation probably is using one side of STC (Size, time, cost) from TRIZ tool box. More on this approach in another entry here.

Other developments were, close interaction with other TRIZ enthusiastic around the world, I started connecting to all those I knew, heard and interacted from the TRIZ world. I’m happy to have them in my social network now. Another important event is that what I always wished to do, taking TRIZ to education. I will have a detailed entry in this blog in couple of days.

India innovation - The problem of "we" factor

2007-06-19T08:10:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) Innovation Summit 2007. The speaker’s profile and session topics were interesting, but overall it didn’t meet my expectation. Perhaps my bar was high! My friend Navneet Bhushan described the summary of the speakers, and what was good part. I'm inline with him on that, so not repeating.

The revelation for me from this conference is “we” will never innovate!! (sorry to be so blunt) The first day of session, the founder of Elephant Design made an interesting statement, “each one of us think that others are doing their work”. A great example of teamwork indeed!! But I saw the next day’s closing session, a discussion by prominent industrialists, chaired by an exemplary host, repeatedly emphasized my thought of “we” factor and “I” factor of innovation. The topic of this discussion was touching me, because all of us want to see India as an innovation hub. Let me not make a statement here, we are “sweat shopper”, but I think we wanted to see “others” are doing their job to make India as an innovation hub. The speakers in the session used the opportunity to sell their companies, audience poured their questions about why corporate, government, industry, IT companies etc are not doing enough to make India a global hub for innovation, every one, including the audience were speaking about “we” need to improve education system, “we” need to educate the people, “we” need to do this, “we” need to do that..!!! Well, what is obvious, nobody wants to do nothing, or everybody wants to assume others are doing the job!!! Sorry, but the teamwork will not work here. All of us should think “I” will do this to make India as a global innovation hub. Many “I”’s should make the “we”, unless and until India will never innovate.

“I” will do something, may be not today, but tomorrow for sure..