Reading List - I

On the topic of reading, Abraham Lincoln once said,

"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all."

I've been asked over the last few months by friends, colleagues and innovation clients variations on the same question - "What books do you read?".

In looking at the various bookcases scattered throughout my house, I rapidly must come to the conclusion that I am thoroughly unoriginal in everything that I do. Here then, to level the playing field, is the first in a series of articles in 2009 about books I'm reading, have read (or may be reading again), and recommend for a variety of business, innovation and creative interests.

I'm going to break the list up into categories where the similarity of some of the books are concerned, just to add a little structure.

Patents

Ok, Patents? You've got to be kidding, right? The world of temporary monopolies and their legalese? Books written by people who didn't have enough personality to become defense attorneys? Patents play an ever-increasing important role in innovation, product development, and monetization of ideas. Yet, the ins and outs of patent research and strategy can be elusive, if not downright frustrating. I've got several well-worn books that never leave my side on these topics, especially recently.

"Rembrandts In The Attic", by Kevin Rivette. Most ideas are never monetized. In this book, Kevin Rivette's strategies for making an organization more savvy about their intellectual property are valuable on their own (though are slightly dated, having been written at the height of the dot-com boom). In today's economic climate, the text serves a purpose that I don't think was intended - an allegory for optimizing the small-scale R&D organization.

"Patents For Business", by M. Henry Heines. An invaluable tool for the engineering manager, product executive, or group leader who needs to navigate the essentials of patent strategy and due diligence. Check out Jim Todhunter's review over at Innovating To Win.


Business Strategy

I tend to read HBR the same way most people never admit - at their local bookstore, with a notebook and over several lattes, before putting it back on the shelf until the next issue. If you're going to be in a position where you work with people that directly shape or impact managing a business, from a sole-proprietorship to a megacorporation spanning hundreds of thousands of employees, you simply cannot afford ignorance of classic, modern, and changing business tactics. Here's a small sample of what I'm chewing through right now.

"The Self-Destructive Habits Of Good Companies", by Jagdish N. Sheth. Can companies become arrogant? Is incumbency of talent a curse? Does success breed failure? If you think you're doing fine in '09, think again. Warning signs of business and product missteps, caught early enough, are opportunities for product, process, and organizational innovation.

"The Art Of Strategy", by Avinish K. Dixit and Barry J. Nalebuff. How should people behave in business? No matter how calculating and logical your thought processes are, you can't ignore the human element in planning any activity where people are involved. Applied game theory is a fascinating topic in business, at least until everyone is thinking about it at the same time (a variant on the Prisoners' Dilemma game).


Innovation and Design

The growing majority of my readership comes from the innovation community. We all have one trait in common - we want the answer right away. So to keep the gig going as any good consultant would, I've saved a few books on innovation for the last part of this article.

"The Design Of Future Things", by Donald A. Norman. In this long awaited sequel to "The Design Of Everyday Things", Norman (a former Apple executive) looks at the advances and perils of automation and integration of "smart" technologies into any and all products that affect day to day living.

"American Streamlined Design: The World Of Tomorrow", by David A. Hanks and Anne Hoy. Design and innovation are eternally at odds with each other balancing constraints of form and function. When both have emerged victorious, the results are some of the most beautiful embodiments of engineering and art. The 1930's and 1940's were unique decades in American design where anything from the simplest tool to the most complex machine was not complete unless they were designed with grace and beauty. I draw much of my own inspiration from this period.

"The Global Brain", by Satish Nambisan and Mohanbir Sawhney. One size rarely fits all, especially in innovation. What works for one company may not for another, yet elements of innovative success can often be leveraged outside the organization that created them. Identifying, shaping, and deploying a "network-centric" innovation model is the theme of this book, which offers some interesting roadmaps.


This list should get you started for a little while. Don't worry, I'll share more books on innovation and other categories in future articles throughout the year. At last count I've conservatively gone through 50 books in just the past 18 months.

Subject: Experts Matter

Note: This is the 5th article in the “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate” series.

As tends to happen at my local bookstore (where I write most of my articles), a new book found its way into my ‘to read’ pile. Mark Bauerlein’s “The Dumbest Generation” caught my eye, if at first for no other reason as to its wise-ass potential. I soon realized that the book’s cover belied a more serious message within its pages.

The premise of Bauerlein’s thesis is that a growing number of young people in the United States are losing the ability to read and comprehend literature, engage in scientific and political debate, and are generally becoming knowledge deficient. The cause is an over-abundance of social technologies which distract young minds from intellectual pursuits and cater to the banality and peer adulation needs of “anyone under 30”.

While I can’t say that I entirely disagree with him, I do have a different perspective on the changing face of human-enabled knowledge management.

I get to work with people who have made careers out of knowing and innovating slices of key industries, science and technologies better than most if not all of their peers. I get to see the best of the best do what they do, and they all do it as well or better than anyone else in their fields. They are, what we call in innovation practice, subject matter experts (SMEs).

SMEs drive cutting-edge advances in all fields such including physics, chemistry, biology, materials, engineering, and of course - business. Frequently I get to know these experts on a personal level, and see the paths they’ve taken to get where they are in their careers. While their industries may differ, their stories are similar. SMEs have journeyed along highly challenging and collaborative academic or entrepreneurial paths, becoming recognized by their peers, and ultimately have sought to bring their talents to the corporate world.

Soon after securing a position in a prestigious firm or a bold startup, a shroud of isolation quickly surrounds many experts as the needs of competitive secrecy and corporate culture arrest open exchange and communication. The subject matter expert becomes an individual contributor, and soon, becomes focused on his or her individual contributions within a department or a project. Does this impact their abilities to drive innovations in their fields of expertise? No. But it often impairs their innate skills of documenting their expertise, or becoming an expert in anything else, in favor of their companies’ operational efficiencies.

Experts are not simply critical innovation resources for the knowledge they’ve passionately collected, developed and apply. Experts are critical drivers of innovation because of how and why they became experts in the first place. They were once passionate about their interests and developed effective documentation, investigation and collaboration skills to rise to the top of their fields. SMEs are incredibly good at writing narratives about their discoveries, research, and opinions. Organizations with an innovation mandate should not overlook these skills, and the SMEs who possess them.

Of the many reasons innovation initiatives fail, lack of available or accessible subject matter expertise is a common factor. In my experience, too often it is discovered that the expert knowledge that could have meant success for the initiative was present all along, but the body-corporate never realized that it had the critical resources sitting within their own walls.

Fostering a collaborative environment across experts in multiple departments, business units and operating companies does not mean risking competitive controls or changing the corporate culture to a completely academic environment. To unleash the potential of SMEs in an innovation culture, a proactive knowledge management strategy that is both central to the organization and distributed throughout all of its operations is critical.

Promoting strong narrative forms of collaborative communication can raise the collective knowledge of an organization, and stem the costly onset of institutional memory loss. This aspect of communication is a critical element of many contemporary social networking applications.

Unlike the exchanges among the younger population which give Bauerlein concern about a growing knowledge deficiency, enabling SMEs to tell and leverage their stories across organizations and industries leads to knowledge-enabled innovation.

How To Eat Soup With A Fork

Note: This is the 4th article in the “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate” series.

At the end of my recent article, “Five Minute Innovation”, I left you with an admittedly intentional cliffhanger. I told you that the secret to five-minute innovation was learning to eat soup with a fork.

(Those of you who’ve just pulled out a spork and feel as if you’ve accomplished something might want to hold off on the victory dance for just a few minutes.)

At its core, innovation is the process of creating or discovering ideas that solve a problem, or fill a need. Logistical details regarding the quality and implementation of ideas generally reside outside the innovation process which creates them. History teaches us that for any kind of innovative breakthrough, whether in industry, art or academia, many ideas need to be created and evaluated before a winning idea emerges. The Economist estimates that the number of ideas needed to fuel a successful product development initiative approaches three-thousand.

Think about that for a moment. For a winning idea which is made manifest as a product in today’s markets, hundreds or even thousands of similar ideas have to be created, validated, and filtered. Winning product development companies recognize this, but their challenge is none the less a formidable one. In order to fill a product pipeline, a winning company (or individual) must have an ability to come up with more ideas of higher quality, and in less time to compete in a global market.

They must master sustainable innovation.

Is it really possible to minimize the time it takes to create or discover an idea? In my experience, successful, rapid and repeatable innovation first means breaking problems down into their simplest, independent forms. Repeatable methodologies and task-based tools are then applied to tackle these simpler problems. Mastering skills and tools that enable quick creation of even a few ideas to solve simple problems is the key to developing breakthrough ideas when solving much larger problems. All it takes to develop these skills is a bit of mental calisthenics, and the will to exercise on a daily basis. The essential (and only) innovation exercise you’ll ever need is this:

Challenge yourself to create and validate just one idea in 5 minutes.

I often pose this challenge to industry leaders, executives and students. Take the dumbest, simplest problem you can find and try to independently create one new idea to address it. Learning to eat soup with a fork is a perfect problem because the goal is so absurd. Why would we actually choose to use a fork to eat soup? The obvious answer is that we wouldn’t. There is safety in this exercise, because very likely we don’t care if the idea is good or not, and that’s exactly the point.

Often we let the fear of failure and the high stakes of success constrain our creative and critical thought processes. We often focus on finding the right answer as the first answer, which means that we rarely learn anything about our own thought processes, let alone try to improve them. Five Minute Innovation changes the focus from finding the “right” answer(s) to honing our creative thought processes and finding one answer quickly.

So, first we need a methodology of thought, but which? The Scientific Method? Six Hats? Deming Wheels? Creative Whack-Pack? Rider-Waite? Take your pick or bring your own method – the important thing is to be consistent in any thought method’s application. For our creative plunge into the soup, I’m going to use a methodology known as the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, or as it’s known in the original Russian form, TRIZ.

A word or two about TRIZ: TRIZ is a wonderful problem solving methodology. Unfortunately due primarily to language barriers, it hasn’t been as widely practiced as other methods over the years. The fundamental benefits and applications of TRIZ are relatively simple to master. Software applications such as Invention Machine Goldfire Innovator provide automation and facilitation of key benefits from the TRIZ method. For more information on the TRIZ methodology itself, the TRIZ Journal website is a good place to start reading.

Getting back to our forking soup problem, we have a definite tradeoff here, or what often is referred to as an engineering contradiction. A part of our system’s design (presumably with the goal in mind of transporting soup) is completely at odds with what’s happening (the soup falls through the fork tines). In the TRIZ method, this is a sweet spot for rapid, creative thinking. We are encouraged to consider using what are known as some of the Forty Inventive Principles by thinking about the problem through a pre-defined contradiction analysis. I’ll spare you the theory here, but let’s jump to the thinking part. One TRIZ-based analysis suggests that with this given tradeoff, we look at solving the systemic problems by any of several approaches:

• Change any parameter of the system including its phase, flexibility, consistency, temperature, (etc.)
  
• Introduce a porous element or intermediary into the system
  
• Do something in advance to increase the current system’s efficiency

So, given these constraints for thinking about a way to solve the problem, what can you think of in just five minutes?

How about:

• Freeze the soup. (“Waiter, I asked for some really cold Gazpacho.”)
  
• Use the fork to pick up a piece of bread which can then be used to soak up larger volumes of soup.
  
• Bend the fork tines to create a pair of pincer grips for grabbing the edge of the soup bowl, and bend the fork handle around to look like a cup handle. Grab the edge of the bowl with your newly formed pincer grips. You’ve just turned the bowl and fork system into a gigantic mug. (I take no responsibility for your dry cleaning bills or any restaurant blacklisting you may encounter should you try this idea.)

Are all these ideas winners? Probably not. The point is that it only took a short time to create and explore them.

Many ideas usually need to be created and evaluated before confidence to choose any single idea is sufficient. While everyone’s creative capabilities are different, everyone has the ability to improve both the level and frequency of simple, pro-active problem solving through short and repeatable exercises.

Five Minute Innovation is a method which, when consciously applied, can help hone and tune technical and creative thought processes. If gaps or blanks appear during its application, that’s just as important as coming up with new ideas. It indicates a need for additional knowledge and perspectives, which helps both current and future innovation cycles. Acquiring and managing knowledge is separate from the innovation process, but is another barrier to Johnny’s innovation, which I’ll talk about in a future article.


So, when you have five minutes to spare, what new ideas will you create?

Five Minute Innovation

Note: This is the 3rd article in the “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate” series.

In my previous article in this series, I continued my commentary on a growing race of highly efficient and skilled predators snuffing out innovation initiatives at some of the biggest and brightest product development companies. The deadliest of these predators, however, doesn’t have to work as hard as the others. In fact, he’s quite complacent phoning in the kill from a comfy chair. His secret weapon: the fear of losing time.

Of all the reasons why innovation initiatives fail to gain traction, the one I’ve observed that tops the list again and again at over one hundred companies is: a perception that innovation takes significant time to achieve.

I want to let you in on a little secret I’ve discovered that may change your business (as well as your competitors’). It is a secret that has, amazingly, been overlooked by some of the sharpest and brightest product development companies, academic institutions, and analyst firms. I think you’ll be astonished by how simple and yet how powerful this secret is.

All innovation occurs in 5 minutes or less.

I realize this may sound like an extreme over-simplification, or some catchy, feel-good guru-speak, but trust me when I say from years of experience facilitating innovation projects, that it isn’t. The time it takes for a subject-matter expert to move from blank stares at a seemingly impossible problem to the eureka moment that marks the beginning of a critical path to success is measurable in seconds or minutes.

The challenges which lead to tremendous amounts of time being lost before innovation occurs are formidable. One challenge is entirely self-imposed. Initial failures of any innovation process occur because ‘now isn’t the time’. There are an endless number of justifications, fears, and excuses companies use to put off innovation. I see this week after week.

I get to work side-by-side with some of the brightest thought leaders from many industries including aerospace, automotive, energy, medicine, industrial and consumer design. I’ve learned that there are no limits in the creative innovations that individuals and teams can develop. I’ve noticed, however, a disturbing phenomenon. If I leave a client alone for more than a few weeks, the result is often as if someone turned out the proverbial innovation light bulb. The same phenomenon appears to many of my innovation consultant colleagues in different practices.

The correlation between our presence with a client and a client’s innovation activity has absolutely nothing to do with our subject knowledge or creative influence. The correlation is much more basic, and frankly easy to understand, yet is often overlooked. When an innovation consultant shows up at his or her client, the client’s management is well aware that they’re paying for the consultant’s time, and innovation tasks suddenly are given both a very high (almost crisis-level) priority, and a limited time for delivery. It shouldn’t take a managerial response to controlling expenses to dictate when innovation is a priority, yet this impacts innovation as much as any factor I’ve witnessed.

There are two factors that I’ve observed about people who put off innovation because of self-imposed priority or time constraints, independent of project, background, or industry.

Factor 1: People generally want the easiest path from point A to point B. This is not only human behavior; it is an aspect of physical laws governing nature. Consider the laws which govern electricity. Electric charge will always find the path of least resistance to a lower potential, without exception. Whenever you see a highly-twisted and random lightning bolt, you’re looking at the shortest path to ground that the bolt could find. Unlike a lightning bolt which finds its path in a split second, human beings will spend hours, sometimes days to find a solution path that takes 5 minutes, which leads me to the second factor.

Factor 2: In today’s interrupt-driven, task-oriented and globally connected world, many people have lost the ability to recognize the difference between research and innovation. Worse, they tend to practice one when the other is required. The results are both unsatisfactory results, and lost time. Let’s focus on this second factor for a moment.

Research involves looking at the past, whether that past is a conversation someone had 5 minutes ago, or is an important technical article written 5 years ago. Effective research is dependent on access to a knowledge management infrastructure. Such infrastructures can be: a library; a search engine; a research archive, (etc) that has been pre-populated by the content we’ll need now or at any point in the future. Research has strategic roots, and is a tool that has great strengths in helping us learn basic or detailed information for any topic, provided that at some point in the past, the information we are interested in now was actually created, captured, and made accessible by the research vehicle of our choice. Research looks for answers to questions that someone else has already asked, directly or indirectly.

Innovation is fundamentally dependent on asking (and answering) an “original” question. This process is not as difficult as it may seem. It merely requires a little bit of discipline, a willingness to surrender a small amount of the creative process to one or more methodologies of thought, and a willingness to put a time limit on success or failure. I’ll explore this in more detail in my next article in this series, but I’ll leave you with something to think about in the mean time:

The secret to successful five minute innovation is: learning to eat soup with a fork.

Getting rid of our shelves...

I was commenting on an article I saw this morning about how modern society puts blindfolds on innovation research, whether its schools that ban students from using WikiPedia, or companies that ban engineers from reading patents.

Traditional barriers, organization, ways of doing things, (etc) all have one thing in common - they provide a structure that for better or worse, limits change.

After I published my comment, I caught up on a bit of work-related (knowledge management) reading and came across an interesting video that elegantly documents the changes that are happening all around us when it comes to organization, sharing, and creating knowledge.





I'm reminded of a quote given to me by a person who used to work for our company. She would often remind me, whenever a company would espouse a way of doing business, research or anything else as a sacred cow, that:

"Sacred cows make the best burgers."