Mike Mandel, Business Week chief economist, comments on the Commerce Dept. Advisory Committee report: Innovation Measurement: Tracking the State of Innovation in the American Economy. It recommends new yardsticks for measuring growth and the contribution of innovation.
The Center for Accelerating Innovation has been collaborating with ASTRA (The Alliance for Science & Technology Research in America) on a framework for describing the “national innovation ecosystem” and for guiding the development of an innovation measurement system we call Innovation Vital Signs (IVS). Download innovation_vital_signs_framework_report_v.2.8.pdf The purpose of such a system is to provide a tool to evaluate the nation’s innovation capabilities and performance, and better assess policy choices and potential impacts. [1] More information on the IVS project can be found at www.usinnovation.org.
The framework is based on a systematic review of 52 public indicator reports and 95 private sector sources. Our review generated an inventory of 3,126 indicators measuring multiple dimensions of innovative activity. We discovered during our review that no common framework for organizing and presenting such indicators exists. The framework we designed is comprehensive and approaches innovation as a complex and multi-faceted process and recognizes:
The framework organizes indicators in four broad domains as illustrated and into 14 specific factors that drive knowledge from original insight to economic impact. Based on a detailed evaluation of these indicators and a workshop we identified a set of baseline indicators from which to evolve innovation vital signs for the national innovation ecosystem. We conclude that currently available indicators and measurement methods do not adequately describe in a timely manner the dynamics of innovation today. Innovation cannot be approached as an isolated inventive activity and linear process. We need to move beyond indicators dominated by inputs such as R&D, scientific and engineering personnel, patents and number of publications. A comprehensive indicator framework is required that can link innovation inputs, processes and outcomes to better reflect the reality of innovation today. Innovation is best viewed an ecosystem of relationships, connections and diverse patterns interaction among individuals and organizations. It is a complex process in which new knowledge eventually becomes embedded into a new products, services, processes and business models that create value. This value creation process in turn generates national benefits and revenue and profit to entities who undertake the risk of being innovators.
Innovation is a process by which value is created for customers through public and private organizations that transform new knowledge and technologies into profitable products and services for national and global markets. A high rate of innovation in turn contributes to more intellectual capital, market creation, economic growth, job creation, wealth, and higher standard of living.
Innovation policy should be based on evidence. Timely, high quality relevant information is available in abundance to support fiscal, monetary and trade policies. Innovation policy for the 21st century will require new indicators, improved data collection and integration methods, and sophisticated visualization tools to understand the more subtle, qualitative and interactive elements of innovation and greater recognition of role innovation plays in the service sector. The framework offered in this report integrates the fundamental change in innovation practices from the previous closed, static, linear and individualistic perspective into a multidimensional, dynamic approach that is capable of staying abreast of the demands of a global economy.
The Innovation Vital Signs conceptual framework identifies 4 domains and 14 innovation factors that collectively interact to create the innovation capacity and performance of a nation. The innovation framework report summarizes the provisional set of indicators that emerged from our global assessment of innovation indicators. Download innovation_vital_signs_framework_report_v.2.8.pdf
[1]The framework builds on the innovation ecosystem concepts and recommendations prepared by Egils Milbergs, Center for Accelerating Innovation for the 21st Century Innovation Working Group of the National Innovation Initiative, Council on Competitiveness. PDF] 21st century innovation working group final report , Innovate America Final Report, December 2004. www.compete.org Additional information on the Innovation Vital Signs Project can be found at www.usinnovation.org
One of the most compelling stories of his life is how he turned around the struggling community of Beloit, Wisconsin. He made a lot of friends and more money redeveloping older vacant properties such as the former Beloit Mall and Beloit Corp. The 450,000-square-foot mall is now the Eclipse Center and holds a banquet facility and convention center, Cardinal Stritch University, Energy Services Inc., department store Elder-Beerman and several public services. The 800,000-square-foot former Beloit Corp. is called Ironworks and was converted for industrial and office use with massive murals on the building. He dreamed a change in Beloit and now hundreds of people are living in his dream. He didn’t neglect the blue collar jobs in favor of white collar jobs—he created both. He was on the road to developing hundreds of new green collar jobs through his environmental/energy ventures. .
The Plot in Rockford, Illinois: A Prototype Innovation Ecosystem
Ken Hendricks also saw opportunities in Rockford, Illinois, a community just south of Beloit and approximately 90 miles northwest of Chicago with a population of approximately 150,000. Rockford's 20th Century industry revolved around machine tools, heavy machinery, automotive, aerospace, fastener and cabinet hardware products, and packaging devices and concepts. During the 1980s the Rockford area went in to a severe economic decline as foreign competition and demand shifts in the manufacturing sector severely impacted the economy and employment structure. Rockford experienced one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. In a typical American story of resilience, Rockford is re-inventing itself and is now in transition as the business, political and civic leadership look to new markets, entrepreneurship and innovation based businesses to drive the future economy.
2006 Governor's Awards Recipients: Ken and Diane Hendricks
29 Oct 2007 by rss@youtube.com (wifoundationarts)
An excerpt from Wisconsin's 2006 Governor's Awards in Support of the Arts, recognizing the life and work of Ken and Diane Hendricks of Beloit.
YouTube :: Tag // work - http://youtube.com/rss/tag/work.rss
Funeral Services for Ken Hendricks (December, 2007)
Billionaire made Beloit his business...Read Article
August 11, 2007 - The Wisconsin State Journal
Hendricks helping turn city around ...Read Article
October 10, 2007 - The Daily Gate City
The Roofer’s Son ...Read Article
September 2007 - Reader's Digest
Ken Hendricks in Forbes ...Read The Interview
The 400 Richest Americans 2007, Secrets Of The Self-Made Q&A
September 20, 2007 - Forbes
Hendricks: 'It's all about treating people right' ...Read Article
June 25, 2007 - The Janesville Gazette
Entrepreneur of the Year
December 2006 - Inc. Magazine ...Read Article
December 26, 2007 in Global Innovation, Innovation, Managing Innovation, Regional Innovaton | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The latest figures reported by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) indicate that public and private sources spent more than $45 billion for R&D on university campuses in Fiscal Year 2006. Some statistics from the report:
• Managed 18,874 new invention disclosures
• Filed 15,908 total U.S. patent applications
• Saw 3,255 U.S. patents issued
• Signed 4,963 new licenses
• Managed 12,672 licenses and options that are yielding active income.
• Had 697 new products introduced to the market in 2006
• Introduced more than 4,350 new products into the market from FY1998 to FY2006.
• Launched 553 new startup companies in 2006.
• 5,724 new spinouts since 1980,
The top performers in licensing income include Duke, New York University, Stanford, the University of California system, the University of Wisconsin and Wake Forest University.
Download US Licensing Activity Survey FY2006
A post by David Simoes-Brown about Open Innovation guru Henry Chesbrough’s visit to NESTA. NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts with a vision to transform the UK's capacity for innovation. Chesbrough has been described by the Economist as “the godfather of open innovation”. Click here for a short video of him in action.
Henry Chesbrough opened the corporate lab with a presentation on the theory of open innovation, and lead the discussion on the implications for practice. You could tell this subject is hot by looking at the quality and seniority of the audience from organisations as diverse as ARUP, AstraZeneca, BBC, BT, GSK, IDEO, RBS, Oracle Kodak, Capgemini, McLaren F1, Microsoft, Oracle, Unilever, P&G and Cancer Research UK. Henry explained why open innovation was on the rise citing factors such as the explosion in venture capital, private funding of universities and increasing workforce mobility amongst others. He then outlined four themes of the 'logic of open innovation':
· Good ideas are widely distributed and no-one has a monopoly;
· Not all the smart people work for us;
· Companies must employ poker players as well as chess players;
· You must manage IP in order to manage research.
NESTA Research Reports
The following links take you to a list of all NESTA's Policy and Research Unit's research reports.
Of particular interest is the Leading Innovation report on how to build effective regional coalitions for innovation. For regions without the extraordinary assets of Silicon Valley (what is termed here ‘ordinary’ regions), making the leap from an old-economy paradigm to one based on innovation in services and high-tech industries can seem impossible. But it isn’t. As shown in the report, it is made up of a series of smaller, more achievable steps. Two things stand out, however: this isn’t a fast process; and it requires deep regional knowledge and strong regional leadership.
The case studies presented in this report showcase seven European regions that have successfully made the transition from ordinary to innovative region; and four UK regions that are somewhere along that journey. It concludes by presenting a guide to the ‘regional innovation journey’ and an analysis of the types of leadership that may be required along the way.
Representatives from more than 25 participating countries were on hand for the announcement and working sessions designed to share information and plan for the coming year. The event took place during Enterprise Week, the centerpiece of Make Your Mark's campaign to promote enterprise culture to young people in the UK.
Watch the video of the announcement.
See photos from the Nov. 13 event
The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Faster & Smarter in a Networked World is a book authored by Satish Nambisan and Mohanbir Sawhney. It is a valuable read. Nick Donofrio, EVP for Innovation and Technology at IBM, writes a powerful introduction addressing his own perspective and endorsing the principle themes of collaborative innovation, communities of creation, innovation ecosystems, open innovation and crowdsourcing and much more. “To pursue open, collaborative innovation, enterprises simply must find ways to tap into the potential of the skill, talent, and creativity of people form different teams in different organizations across the globe. A company can only be as innovative as the collective capacity of the people who make up its ecosystem.”
The book is organized into five parts:
1) From Firm Centric to Network Centric Innovation
2) The Landscape of Network- Centric Innovation
3) The Four Models of Network- Centric Innovation
4) Executing Network-Centric Innovation
5) Globalization and Network-Centric Innovation
The authors make a compelling case on why firms need to search for sources of creativity from both inside and outside the firm-- “innovate beyond boundaries.” There is no singular model (one size does not fit all). They present a useful taxonomy for analyzing the various dimensions and changing pattern of innovation and the confluence of open source innovation and business ecosystems. The most fun part is the presentation of four emerging models of network-centric innovation, which is useful in choosing the right strategy:
1) The Orchestra Model
2) The Creative Bazaar Model
3) The Jam Central Model
4) The MOD (“Modification”) Station Model
Egils Milbergs comments: “For those who want to study innovation and those that want to be innovators Global Brain is full of important insights on the journey to building the innovation DNA for a business.”
After wrestling with Six Sigma principals for just about every company activity under former CEO James McNerney, 3M is largely abandoning it in research and development. Design News tells the story of that journey. Full Story >>
Rob Thompson on his www.learnsigma.com blog gets into this question of the future role of Six Sigma and innovation.
Some excerpts from his blog below.
As I’ve wrote time and time again on this blog there is no reason why Six Sigma should stifle innovation. Obviously 3M would disagree: [3M Shelves Six Sigma in R&D]
Critics argue that excessive metrics, steps, measurements and Six Sigma’s intense focus on reducing variability water down the discovery process. Under Six Sigma, the free-wheeling nature of brainstorming and the serendipitous side of discovery is stifled. Experts agree the blanket approach to Six Sigma is generally not a good idea
Which ones? Name a few ….
Okay, then: Michael Tushman, a professor at Harvard Business School, says:
These TQM (Total Quality Management) and class of methodologies that are anchored on reducing variability are inversely associated with what we call exploratory innovation. Methodologies help incremental innovation. The more you apply them in R&D, the less effective they are on exploratory innovation
So has the Six Sigma moment passed?
“I think it has,” says Babson College management professor Tom Davenport. “Process management is a good thing. But I think it always has to be leavened a bit with a focus on innovation and [customer relationships].”… the notion of Six Sigma as a corporate cure-all is subsiding.
… the “define, measure, analyze, improve, control” mind-set doesn’t entirely gel with the fuzzy front-end of invention. When an idea starts germinating, Carter says, “you don’t want to overanalyze it,” which can happen in a traditional DMAIC framework.
AAARRGGHHH!! How many more times do will I hear that six sigma and innovation are not compatible. How many more times will someone say six sigma is dead, or ISO 9001 or any other quality management process? If you are tying to build an innovative product, would you rather have a stable, capable process where variation is known and controlled to work as a base to build upon or one which is widely fluctuating all over the place? Come on - this is a total no-brainer! Next it will be lean which is under attack, even though:
Improving productivity in the face of lower production is a huge accomplishment
Do you have an opinion? More to come on this topic in the future.
Although 90 percent of senior executives rate innovation as a top strategic priority, almost half admit to being dissatisfied with the return they get from their innovation dollars, according to a survey by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) of more than 1,000 decision makers. A key reason is that most companies confuse ideas or inventions with innovation. True innovation must lead—directly or indirectly—to increased profits. And even when companies recognize this, they're generally unsure how to determine which innovation efforts are on the road to payback, and which are destined to become "cash traps"—projects that drain valuable resources that could be better invested elsewhere. That's according to Jim Andrew and Hal Sirkin, BCG senior vice presidents and coauthors of the new book, Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation (Harvard Business School Press, January 9, 2007).
According to Jim Andrews, “Even at the best companies, up to a third of all innovation initiatives are wasting cash and human resources and will continue to do so. Cash traps in innovation portfolios are more damaging—and prevalent—than most companies realize." The challenge is to identify which projects need to be curtailed so ones with real potential can be focused on and brought to market faster—with a higher probability of success. According to Payback, the cash curve offers leaders a way to create a picture of any innovation effort—a "payback profile" of an innovation and its critical stages from the same perspective. The cash curve takes into account the four key variables that contribute to—or prevent—payback: start-up costs, speed to market, speed to scale, and support costs. "We call these variables the 'Four S's', and they're the levers that innovation leaders can use to fine-tune efforts. By analyzing these variables on a cash curve, companies can clearly see when to kill an effort, when to invest more, or when to speed up or delay a launch”
The "Right" Innovation Metrics Are Also Critical
Measuring innovation is another issue that companies struggle with. "Most companies are looking for a 'silver bullet' metric to help them predict or force a perception of profitability—or they're using a collection of metrics that aren't very valuable. What they really need is a set of metrics that provides not only a picture of the outputs of innovation—cash payback and indirect benefits—but also inputs, including time, money and people, as well as the overall effectiveness of the innovation process," says Jim Andrew. For more information on getting a copy of Payback and supporting materials, or to schedule a conversation with one of the authors, please contact Alexandra Corriveau at Sommerfield Communications, Inc. +1 212 255 8386 or alexandra@sommerfield.com .
The National Academy of Engineering is asking the public to weigh in over the internet with their ideas for the greatest technological challenges of the next century. The project, called the "Grand Challenges for Engineering" program, is aimed at gathering up all those ideas and distilling them into a list of 20 puzzles for engineers to solve — in fields ranging from energy to communications to aerospace to advanced materials. Over the next few months, comments and suggestions will be sorted and ranked, then reviewed by an 18-member blue-ribbon committee.
This project is sponsored by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, Award # ENG-063206. For more information, please contact Randy Atkins at engineeringchallenges@nae.edu
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