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OVO Views
Conversations about Innovation
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January 2007
- Vol 1, Issue 7
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In This Issue
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Quick Links
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Greetings!
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Welcome to the OVO innovation newsletter.
It's January and we're all interested in getting our
year off to a good start - so in this issue we
look at some of the challenges to getting started to
become more innovative.
We feature one of our innovation partners and
focus on a real world innovation example from Jeff
Dupuie at OakStone Consulting, who tells us about
breakthrough innovations in established industries.
We begin a new series of columns on the important
roles for innovation, focusing this month on the
"Scout". Finally, we continue our focus on the
important
"C's" for
innovation success. Last month we looked at
Convenience as a driver for innovation. This month,
we look at Community
and its place as a driver for innovation success.
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For most of us, January starts a new calendar year
and a new fiscal year. That means that right
now there are
many new initiatives just getting started. In many
firms, beginning a new initiative takes a
significant amount of management time. That's
because in any organization there are
existing demands, competing
initiatives and a scarcity of management talent,
resources and time.
Right now, many firms are "getting started" on their
innovation initiatives. What are the major hurdles
they'll face and how will they overcome those
hurdles?
We at OVO have several solutions to help you get
your innovation initiative started quickly and
effectively.
First, we offer a web seminar on getting
started called "Getting Started to Innovate". Click here
to register for that seminar. Contact us
if you prefer a one on one discussion.
Second, OVO provides innovation assessments
as part
of our innovation consulting. From our experience,
there are seven key factors for innovation success,
and all while all of these factors are important, it
is critical to understand how (and when) to address
each of these factors when getting started.
For example, Yogi Berra used to say that "when you
come to a fork
in the road, take it", but even he didn't have any
advice for individuals who face six or seven equally
important forks. The assessment of
the "status quo" can help you prioritize the tasks
and next actions for your innovation initiative.
The self-assessment examines a number of key
criteria within your business - the culture, the
organization, the innovation processes, the goals
and metrics and
so forth. The assessment helps indicate which of
these factors
are in good shape from an innovation readiness point
of view, and which factors need focus and
improvements. The assessment, once completed, will
help the
innovation leader set goals and prioritize the work
that needs to be completed to get the team started
and identify some quick wins. To see the assessment
form, please click on this
link
and view the form on our website. If you are
interested in the work and thinking behind the
assessment, contact
us
for further discussions.
To get your new initiatives off to a good start, it
helps to have your team prepared and ready and to
have all
of the important components of your project
organized. Taking a quick assessment of your
situation will help in the short run to ensure you
are quick out of the blocks, and over the long term
to reduce or eliminate obstacles.
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Partner Highlight - OakStone Consulting
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Innovation happens in many different organizations
and with many different forms. The more examples
we
can review and evaluate, the better we'll all become
at innovation. In our continuing effort to reach
out to other innovation leaders and understand their
experiences and perspectives,
we're pleased to welcome Jeff Dupuie to our
newsletter as a featured contributor this month.
Jeff has a great history in product development and
innovation. He is currently a partner with two
firms: OakStone Partners
(www.oakstonepartners.com) and Kalypso
(www.kalypso.com). He previously
worked with management consultants PRTM, as well as
holding
product development roles with Motorola and the Ford
Motor Company.
Jeff agreed to an interview to talk about new
product innovation and breakthrough innovation in
established companies. We sat down with Jeff in late
November and early December to talk about his
experiences with innovation and new product
development.
Read the article
that resulted from that conversation.
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Innovation as a cross-functional activity requires
people in many different business functions to
generate, manage, evaluate, prototype and launch
new
products and services. As a cross-functional
activity, innovation requires that many people
participate in ways that are not well-defined or
organized by our existing organizational
structures.
Innovation can create new part-time and full-time
roles within your organization. Over the next few
months we'll examine some of these roles and the
value they can add to your innovation initiatives.
The Scout
The first role we'll consider is the Scout. In the
cavalry, the role of the Scout was to ride ahead of
the rest of the troop, gathering information on the
enemy and reporting back and drawing conclusions
based on what had been learned.
An innovation Scout has a similar focus - seeking
out new markets, new trends and competitive moves
and assimilating that information and providing it
to others who need the information to make critical
decisions.
An innovation Scout, unlike his or her cavalry
counterpart, does not have to be an expert at
reading the terrain or seeing the "signs" left by
others. In fact, everyone in your firm can be a
Scout. Given that we have an infinite number of
communication channels, media and other information
sources, anyone who learns a new piece of
information, an inference from a vendor, a
discussion with a customer, can record that
information as a Scout. Information can take the
form of:
- Something read in the press
- Information from a business partner
- Identified trends in the marketplace
- Customer requests for new products
- Competitor actions
These are just a few of the many sources of
information. The Scouts need to understand what's
important to your innovation initiative and how to
provide the data to you.
Your job, as the innovation leader, is to help your
Scouts understand what data you need, why that
data is important and how that information will
be used. Once people have been informed
that data about a particular competitor or market
segment is important, they'll be more prepared to
capture that information and send it to you. The
more eyes and ears you have capturing trends and
market opportunities, the more clearly defined your
innovations can be. Who can be a Scout? Your sales
people, your marketing team, your engineers, your
business partners, your customers and many other
resources can be a Scout for your innovation team.
Scouts provide the early warning capability
necessary to keep your firm ahead of the product and
service innovation curve, rather than merely
reacting to what the markets want or what
competitors are doing. Gathering the information
and using it effectively will help your innovation
teams focus on emerging opportunities.
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Innovation Success - The "C" Factor
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Over the last few months we've had an ongoing series
of articles about the "C" factor - success criteria
for innovations that begin with the letter "C". In
previous newsletters we've examined the concepts of
Choice and Control, and Convenience.
In this issue we'll look at the importance of
Community as a success factor for innovation.
We've defined community as a group of individuals
who are aligned in some way. Communities impact
innovations in a number of interesting ways:
- Communities can create innovations
- Innovations can create communities
- Communities springboard innovations to increased
growth
- Communities kill innovations very quickly
Communities are important for innovations because
the innovations are shaped by the community, usually
for the better. An innovation that cannot attract a
community is either too narrowly targeted or does
not solve a recognized need. Communities can also
create innovations through their joint interactions,
as we'll see.
Communities create innovations
While many of us think that innovations are created
by scientists in white lab coats working in pristine
conditions in a skunkworks, many innovations are
created by people in the real world, sharing their
ideas and building incremental solutions or
extending existing products and services to meet
their needs. These communities are often
like-minded individuals and become a group of "lead
users" for an idea. A great example of a community
creating an innovation is the mountain bike. The
original mountain bikers created their bikes from
racing bikes, motorcycle parts and other bits and
pieces of bicycles and other gear. They were
creating one of a kind bicycles to go off-road.
These lead users attracted the interest of a firm
that at that time specialized in bike components.
The firm, Specialized, recognized an opportunity and
built a series of mountain bikes. The bicycle
market today is dominated by mountain bikes, which
did not exist 20 years ago. In this case lead users
created the mountain bike and Specialized
capitalized on the innovation and created a new
market segment.
Innovation creates a community
Every innovation eventually creates a group of
customers who find value in the innovation and
become the early adopters and cheerleaders for the
product or service. In fact without the community
and word of mouth advertising, many innovations
would not succeed. Often, firms that seek to
introduce new products and services overlook the
power of community or try to replace the community
building with marketing and PR.
A good example of the lack of community for a new
innovation is satellite radio. What, exactly, is
the community for satellite radio? Given that many
people are doing work in
their cars or are on the phone, is satellite radio
really for the average commuter? Maybe not. Then
is the community for satellite radio the road
warrior or the long haul trucker? Given that all of
us have CD players, DVD players and so forth, is
satellite radio really an advancement over free
radio? Finally, with the advent of Pandora and
other streaming music
sites that an individual can tailor to their
desires, satellite radio doesn't offer dramatic
benefits over music and radio sites on the internet.
Without a clear community to adopt and advocate for
satellite radio, there's much less chance of
successful adoption and growth.
Communities as a springboard
Communities can also act as a springboard for a new
innovation, driving its perceived value and demand
much higher. The iPod is a great example of a
small, very focused community (Apple users) who
wanted the same great experience they have with their
computer with their MP-3 player. That small
community influenced the frustrated early adopters
of other MP-3
players who saw Apple creating a "whole product" -
player and available, downloadable music - and
joined the Apple diehards to create a powerful
community and strong word of mouth. The iPod
community accelerated the acceptance of the iPod and
drove incredible sales and profits for Apple.
Another interesting example is YouTube. In this
case,YouTube created nothing more than a
virtual space and the ability to upload and search
material,
and a community formed around the space. In the
case of YouTube, the value in the innovation was the
ability to create critical mass in one location very
quickly based on freely available user-generated
content. YouTube and other approaches like it have
the power to disrupt the existing movie production
process in the US, making it much easier for
moviemakers to present their works to a broad
audience without using the studios.
Communities and Innovation
Clearly, communities are an important component to
the success of many innovations. Communities help
define and shape innovations and through word of
mouth increase awareness of the innovation and
demand for the innovation.
For your innovations, carefully consider the
community that exists or will need to exist for your
innovation to be successful. Is the innovation
defined by an existing community? Can a new
community be created quickly around the innovation?
For broad acceptance of a new product or service,
understanding the importance Community plays is as
important as Choice, Control and Convenience.
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Low Cost, Low Risk idea management
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OVO has recently announced that its
software -
specifically Spark
and Incubator
- are now available
as a hosted service. What this means to you is that
your team can get started very quickly and easily
generating and capturing ideas in a hosted model,
for much less cost and effort than you might
expect.
Spark, a web-based application for brainstorming,
ideation and whiteboarding, is priced in the hosted
model at $20 per concurrent user per month.
Incubator, a collaborative idea management system,
is priced at $40 per concurrent user per month.
These are powerful software applications offered at
a price that
means you should act now to get your innovation
teams started generating and capturing ideas in a
consistent application framework.
There are two real innovations in this offer: the
concurrent software model and the ability to move
quickly from a hosted version to an internally
managed licensed version.
OVO offers its hosted software in a concurrent
model. This means you can license the software in
blocks of 5 concurrent users, but sign up 5 users
for each concurrent license. For example, if you
buy 5 concurrent users, your team can establish as
many as 25 registered users. Any 5 of those
accounts can be active at one time. You'll pay less
but
provide the functionality to a much broader audience.
OVO also offers the ability to quickly move from a
hosted model, where we host and manage the data
for
you, to an internally managed and licensed model,
where your team hosts and manages the software.
This means your team can get started quickly, often
within a day or two, using the hosted model, and
bring the management of the ideas and software in
house when the time is right.
With this offer there is simply no reason to wait -
your team can access powerful software and get
started using that software very quickly at an
exceptionally affordable price. Robert Tucker, in
his book "Driving Growth through Innovation"
recommends using a collaborative idea management
system as one of the first steps towards becoming
more innovative. You won't find a more powerful
application that provides you with the flexibility
and capability that OVO offers right now.
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If you'd like to discuss how OVO can work with you
to improve your innovation strategies, ideation
sessions, innovation processes or software,
contact us today at our website or
(919) 844-5644 x789.
If you enjoyed this innovation newsletter, please
pass it along to your friends. If you wish to
unsubscribe, please see the link below.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Phillips
OVO
phone:
919-844-5644 x789
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OVO | 220 Horizon Drive | Suite 117 | Raleigh | NC | 27615
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