"Big" projects are not happening anymore

If you see the video, the gist of it is that from 1900 to 1968 there were incomprehensible advances that exceeded what the imagination thought possible. The atom's nucleus was discovered and its power was harnessed. Machine-based flight was invented and we reached the moon. From 1968 to 2012, no such advances were made. Everything has been a step up from technology that was arguably already available. The first satellite had been launched into space, supersonic travel was possible, DNA had long been discovered, wireless data transmission existed, and computers existed. You would expect advances in what these technologies can do in 44 years, and they have advanced a lot, but we haven't exceeded the dreams from 1968 (see Star Trek and other media from the time). Nothing big has happened. What is wrong?

Mobile technology's life-saving potential

Innovating for society is not hard, it's a question of method and identifying needs.

For instance, emergency care you want while you're unconscious—sure, you can put a DNR order on your wallet or clearly state your blood type, allergies, etc. but all that is old-fashioned and still leaves space for mistakes.

What are your needs? Accuracy, respect for your beliefs/wishes, no harm.

Besides the odd case when someone else has your cellphone, why doesn't it give doctors your information? How about having a passive RFID chip with this information under your skin? Either way, the doctor could scan your data, input what medicine he's planning to give you and a red alert would pop up if you're allergic to something or opposed to invasive methods. Simple and nearly foolproof. Of course, the law should clearly state that any information accessible from such technology is protected under doctor-patient confidentiality and inaccessible for other purposes.

How about disaster relief? Your only need in that case is to be found quickly. Why don't all cellphones have a trigger that can be remotely activated so they preserve battery life and/or signal their location? Considering that even in 3rd world countries a significant number of inhabitants have mobiles, considering a near 1 to 1 use of mobiles this could speed up rescues efforts significantly. Forcing all cellphones in an area to screech unless a button is pressed doesn't violate anyone's privacy and a feature like this could be activated as soon as rescue teams are prepared. It also avoids some of GPS's shortcomings (like being under rubble).

I know that these are only ideas, far from perfect, but I only brainstormed for needs, by myself, for 5 minutes. If you find a need, you can find a solution and iterate from there. What's important is to find a need; even if you don't have the skills to build a solution by yourself, a clearly identified need is like a vision and mission and its importance should never be underestimated. Where there's a need, somebody will find a way.

Google's Hangout Blitz and g+ advantage

Many people have been saying that g+, Google's social networking platform, will never measure up to facebook and that it's a failure. This month, Google has been stepping it up and shown how bright its platform can shine. It's a great showcase of good innovation coupled with amazing marketing.

CES 2012

CES 2012 is over and, for those of you unfamiliar with it, there were a few surprises. Honestly, these surprises weren't technological; Smart TVs have been predicted by analysts for quite a while (although Google TV failed), OLED has been around since 2004 but never really mass-produced, a plethora of iPhone and iPad accessories were on display, and the Keynotes were lackluster. Why, then, was this show surprising?

Freemium

Freemium has been in the software industry since the 80s, but was only recently coined (mid-2000s). Back when it came out, trial and "lite" versions of software were distributed, on floppies and other media, to businesses. In the 90s, the model extended to personal software as well. Now, it's ubiquitous on every App store. Having said that, freemium has always been around in one way or the other; you wouldn't buy a car without a test drive and people buying new technologies have always had the need to see it in action. For instance, before trading a chunk of meat for a bow and arrow, a person had to know what it did and how well—that's why the telephone had such slow adoption from when it was introduced.

Hard work vs genius

Would we have good music, art, or technology if people
didn't work hard for them?

It may sound cliché, but there's no such thing as a genius innovator. Edison, Ford, Einstein, Jobs, and many others brought about genially fresh ideas and they worked really hard. Edison tried hundreds of times before successfully designing a decent lightbulb, Ford was obsessed with cost savings, Einstein was considered inapt for mathematics as a child, and Jobs loved simplicity. What do these innovators from different eras have in common? They all had a strong vision but they all worked hard to achieve their goals.

95% of new products fail

You came upon something that's different or groundbreaking and you know it has tons of potential. You've done it before, introduced an awesome product without capturing your customers' attention. How do you achieve your product's potential when up to 95% of new products fail?

You don't fail enough!

Failure is an essential part of innovation. A successful company:

• must be hedge failure—many risks should result in a reward, but if every "risk" succeeds you are not pushing any boundaries. If every
• take risks—if you fail because you didn't take risks your clients fled to the competition or substitute products. If you don't innovate you become a dinosaur.
• should accept failure—this point is very important, not just because of best practices for innovation. If you don't accept failure, employees are often fearful for their jobs and could try to coverup mistakes until they blow up. If you accept that even the best employees will fail, you can manage their projects better.
• learn from its failed projects and review them.

Why hire innovators?

"You snooze, you lose." The two "most obvious" reasons a company innovates are to catch up to a changing industry and market and to gain the upper hand on competitors.

Are these reasons compelling enough for a company to  hire innovators? My biased opinion is no, they should use their internal talent, unless the company is large (economies of scale).

Social Innovation

It's valuable, rewarding, and selfless to do social innovation. Earlier this year, I participated in a social innovation workshop for an organization called Design for America (DFA). This organization teaches students several tools that can be used to improve a community and encourages them to build solutions.

People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it

If what I've told you about doing things for a compelling reason hasn't hit home, watch this video. "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it."

It's humbling to say this, but that video is possibly the most important thing I've posted here. Hopefully we all let "why" drive our lives. More than "success," what you do and how you do it become indicative of something. What is success if not doing something significant on your lifetime?

Innovating for yourself!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! A non-business post for the holiday!

Lets talk about an exciting subject, innovating on your life for your own happiness. Unless you are OCD or extremely neurotic, odds are that a little bit of change is good for you.

Cool Self-Driving car concept.

Click on this very interesting link about a self-driving Prius concept. It will drive itself to and from the garage and feature other cool innovations only achievable with self-driving car. Share cool things you envision for a future where everyone has a car like this.

Is criticizing Apple heresy? I think not.

As you all know, the iPhone 4s was just an incremental improvement on the iPhone 4. Was Apple right in doing this and can they replicate this success forever?  Yes and no.

Apple has relied on a very successful formula. They've done it really well and washed, rinsed, and repeated it several times. Read past the jump for more details.

How do you innovate for value

Where does innovation add the most value?

Innovation that addresses an important problem or need adds the most value.

Identifying the importance of the problem that's being solved, if there's a sizable market for a solution, and whether the solution is good and marketable enough to be adopted. You'd be surprised how often that advice is NOT used by innovative companies.

Cotton Candy, turns any screen into a computer

The USB drive on the image is called Cotton Candy. It turns any screen into a computer, more specifically, into an Android station. You can output 1080p video and do anything you can do on the Android platform. It's got bluetooth (for mouse, keyboard, or tablet input) and wifi to access the interent. It's definitely a pretty cool innovation.

How can the makers of this device innov8on that? Well, that's not all that this blog is about; it's also about marrying marketing and execution to an innovation. How can they market this product successfully is a better question. Did they use S.M.A.R.T. design?

I don't know enough about the product and this blog isn't about speculation. Share your opinion; will Cotton Candy be a success?

S.M.A.R.T. design for S.T.U.P.I.D. users

This is a very interesting article about good design for users that are stressed, tired, untrained, passive, independent*, and/or distracted (S.T.U.P.I.D.).

How do we address this?

The cliffs note version is to make your design Simple, Memorable, "Accept Autopilot**," Recoverable, and Tested in real life situations.

The Proper Way to Brainstorm

Click on the image for some guidelines that will lead you to better brainstorming sessions:

There's a caveat—there is no "proper" way to brainstorm. These guidelines should be useful in most cases and you can use it to uncover the reasons why your organization can or can't brainstorm.


On a side note, thank you for supporting my efforts! My Blog has been up for 40 hours and has received over 80 views. Please comment on how I can improve and keep my efforts relevant to you.

Going BIG, a different way of generating ideas

Do big ideas need to go big? I learned about a company called BIG, the Big Idea Group, through my innovation class. I won't discuss the case study done in class, it's unethical to share information that's not free. I will tell you what Big does, how, and why it works.

The Lean Startup

Just recommending an article. Should be relevant to anyone interested in entrepreneurship and operations! It's an enjoyable read.