Innovation practitioners know that they should not listen to the
experts who approach life with rigid blinkers that prevent them from
visualising anything outside their conditioned minds.
TAKING a
leaf out of what our Prime Minister wrote in this space two weeks ago,
innovative thinking is undoubtedly a significant driver in propelling
the nation’s economy to new heights. It is imperative that Malaysians
embrace a culture of innovation.
But let’s take a step or two
back, before we can begin to move forward. It is important to pin down
exactly what innovation means. Several readers have asked me if
innovation is the same as invention, especially after reading about
Malaysian researchers winning awards for their inventions. In fact,
although they may appear similar at first glance, upon closer inspection
both are very different indeed.
If you make something unique or
original, that’s an invention. Whether the invention has value or not is
immaterial. This is why we see whacky inventions like toothbrushes for
dogs or a clip-on fan on chopsticks to cool down noodles. Both these
examples are unique and original but offer little value to most
citizens.
Innovation demands creating additional value, even
though a product or service may not be unique or original. The innovator
must first unravel customer needs, and then figure out how to inject
greater value at different parts of the solution. Let’s look at two
examples.
Forty-five years ago, the radical economist and
philosopher E.F. Schumacher formed an NGO called Practical Action to
help people in developing countries help themselves. Practical Action
states that more than 1.6 million people in developing countries die of
diseases and accidents caused by cooking and heating fires in homes.
This is not surprising, given that one third of humanity still uses
rudimentary stoves fuelled by wood, charcoal or dung.
Liquefied
petroleum gas (LPG) is a viable solution as it costs less than wood or
charcoal, but most villagers cannot afford the stoves. Some African
countries have implemented an innovative “revolving fund” credit system
that allows villagers to buy stoves. It works exactly like the “kutu”
scheme prevalent in Malaysia for decades, although illegally. Ten
households get together and form a fund, with each household
contributing a fixed amount to the fund each month, for 10 months.
Every
month, one household collects the contributions that month to buy a
stove. The following month, another household gets the total
contributions to buy their stove. Households draw lots to see who will
get the fund over the next 10 months. Within 10 months, all 10
households get their LPG stove. Now imagine adapting this idea to meet
the needs of entire communities and you see the power of this innovative
funding system. No handouts or subsidies from the government and no
bank loans either – the villagers help themselves, through innovation.
This is a common sense solution, not rocket science. To be precise, this
is innovation.
Let’s look at the second example. Does the number
of new books that hit the bookshelves every month overwhelm you? It was
predicted that the Internet would spell the death of the printed word,
but in fact the reverse has happened. There are now more books in print
than at any other time in history. How does one keep up?
As it is
commonly known, a number of innovative online companies have found a
practical solution to this. For a small fee, these companies provide a
short summary of a book containing all the essential ideas presented in
the book. Most people can read these summaries in 15 minutes, making it
possible to read at least one book each day. This “compressed knowledge”
is another example of innovation.
Ultimately, innovation is not
confined to technologies, products or services. You can have innovation
at every stage of the business cycle – from manufacturing to
distribution to sales to post-sales support.
Just look at Nike,
the world’s largest supplier of athletic shoes and apparel. It does not
own a single manufacturing factory, but focuses on innovation in design
and marketing. Another well-known example is DHL, a world-leading
courier and logistics company that relies on innovation to accurately
ship a document or parcel from the point of origin to its destination.
For
you to benefit and profit from innovation, you have to dissect your
business or activity into its key pieces or “parts”. The “eco-system”
must be correctly identified, as dealing with just one part of the
problem or value-chain is unlikely to bring satisfactory results.
Nothing exists in isolation and even seemingly unconnected things are
actually connected, so a “village” or holistic approach to innovation is
necessary.
For each piece or part, you have to ask a fundamental
question: How can I do this better, so that the outcome is greater than
it is now – at a lower cost? Your brain will rebel at first and tell
you that it cannot be done. Don’t listen to your brain; it is a lazy
device looking for the easiest way out. Innovation practitioners know
that the last person you should listen to is your own self. Don’t listen
to the experts either, for they approach life with rigid blinkers that
prevent them from visualising anything outside their conditioned minds.
Adopt
a child-like disposition and question the assumptions that you and
others have taken for granted. Persist until you have questioned each
and every aspect of all the pieces of the puzzle and found answers that
are uncommon.
This sounds easy, but it is the most difficult step
as it questions all the sacred cows lurking in your belief system. Done
correctly, however, it can lead to breakthrough innovations.
If you have been through this process, share your stories with me at
kamal@pmo.gov.my so that other readers can benefit from your lessons too.
The Star Ignite
By DATUK SERI DR KAMAL JIT SINGH
>
Unit Inovasi Khas CEO Datuk Seri Dr Kamal Jit Singh is hoping to jolt Malaysians out of complacency.
The Difference Between 'Invention' and 'Innovation'
Two and a half years ago, I co-founded
Stroome, a collaborative online video editing and publishing platform and
2010 Knight News Challenge winner.
From its inception, the site received a tremendous amount of attention. The New School,
USC
Annenberg, the Online News Association and, ultimately, the Knight
Foundation all saw something interesting in what we were doing. We won
awards; we were invited to present at conferences; we were written about
in the trades and
featured in over 150 blogs.
Yet despite all the accolades, not once did the word "invention" creep
in. "Innovation," it turns out, was the word on everyone's lips.
Like so many up-and-coming entrepreneurs, I was under the impression
that invention and innovation were one and the same. They aren't. And,
as I have discovered, the distinction is an important one.
Recently, I was asked by Jason Nazar, founder of
Docstoc and a big supporter of the
L.A. entrepreneurial
community, if I would help define the difference between the two. A
short, 3-minute video response can be found at the bottom of this post,
but I thought I'd share some key takeaways with you here:
INVENTION VS. INNOVATION: THE DIFFERENCE
In its purest sense, "
invention" can be defined as the creation of a product or introduction of a process for the first time. "
Innovation," on the other hand, occurs if someone
improves on or
makes a significant contribution to an existing product, process or service.
Consider the microprocessor. Someone invented the microprocessor. But
by itself, the microprocessor was nothing more than another piece on
the circuit board. It's what was
done with that piece -- the
hundreds of thousands of products, processes and services that evolved
from the invention of the microprocessor --
that required innovation.
STEVE JOBS: THE POSTER BOY OF INNOVATION
If ever there were a poster child for innovation it would be former Apple
CEO Steve Jobs. And when people talk about innovation, Jobs' iPod is cited as an example of innovation at its best.
But let's take a step back for a minute. The iPod wasn't the first
portable music device (Sony popularized the "music anywhere, anytime"
concept 22 years earlier with the Walkman); the iPod wasn't the first
device that put hundreds of songs in your pocket (dozens of
manufacturers had
MP3 devices on the market when the iPod was released in 2001); and Apple was actually
late to the party when it came to providing an online music-sharing platform. (Napster, Grokster and Kazaa all preceded iTunes.)
So, given those sobering facts, is the iPod's distinction as a defining example of innovation warranted? Absolutely.
What made the iPod and the music ecosystem it engendered innovative wasn't that it was the
first portable music device. It wasn't that it was the
first MP3 player. And it wasn't that it was the
first company to make thousands of songs immediately available to millions of users. What made Apple innovative was that it
combined
all of these elements -- design, ergonomics and ease of use -- in a
single device, and then tied it directly into a platform that
effortlessly kept that device updated with music.
Apple invented nothing.
Its innovation was creating an easy-to-use ecosystem that unified music discovery, delivery and device. And, in the process, they revolutionized the music industry.
IBM: INNOVATION'S UGLY STEPCHILD
Admittedly, when it comes to corporate culture, Apple and
IBM are worlds apart. But
Apple and IBM aren't really as different as innovation's poster boy would have had us believe.
Truth is if it hadn't been for one of
IBM's greatest innovations -- the personal computer -- there would have been no Apple. Jobs owes a lot to the introduction of the
PC. And
IBM was the company behind it.
Ironically, the
IBM PC didn't contain any
new inventions per se (see iPod example above). Under pressure to
complete the project in less than 18 months, the team actually was under
explicit instructions
not to invent anything new. The goal of the first
PC, code-named
"Project Chess," was to take off-the-shelf components and bring them
together in a way that was user friendly, inexpensive, and powerful.
And while the world's first PC was an innovative product in the
aggregate, the device they created -- a portable device that put
powerful computing in the hands of the people -- was no less impactful
than Henry Ford's Model T, which reinvented the automobile industry by
putting affordable transportation in the hands of the masses.
INNOVATION ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH
Given the choice to invent or innovate, most entrepreneurs would take
the latter. Let's face it, innovation is just sexier. Perhaps there are
a few engineers at
M.I.T. who can name the members of "Project Chess." Virtually everyone on the planet knows who Steve Jobs is.
But innovation alone isn't enough. Too often,
companies focus on a technology instead of the customer's problem. But in order to truly turn a great idea into a world-changing innovation, other factors must be taken into account.
According to Venkatakrishnan Balasubramanian, a research analyst with
Infosys Labs, the key to ensuring that innovation is successful is
aligning your idea with the strategic objectives and business models of
your organization.
In
a recent article that appeared in Innovation Management, he offered five considerations:
1. Competitive advantage: Your innovation should provide a unique competitive position for the enterprise in the marketplace;
2. Business alignment: The differentiating factors of your
innovation should be conceptualized around the key strategic focus of
the enterprise and its goals;
3. Customers: Knowing the customers who will benefit from your innovation is paramount;
4. Execution: Identifying resources, processes, risks, partners
and suppliers and the ecosystem in the market for succeeding in the
innovation is equally important;
5. Business value: Assessing the value (monetary, market size,
etc.) of the innovation and how the idea will bring that value into the
organization is a critical underlying factor in selecting which idea to
pursue.
Said another way, smart innovators frame their ideas to stress the
ways in which a new concept is compatible with the existing market
landscape, and their company's place in that marketplace.
This adherence to the "status quo" may sound completely antithetical
to the concept of innovation. But an idea that requires too much change
in an organization, or too much disruption to the marketplace, may never
see the light of day.
A FINAL THOUGHT
While they tend to be lumped together, "invention" and "innovation"
are not the same thing. There are distinctions between them, and those
distinctions are important.
So how do you know if you are inventing or innovating? Consider this analogy:
If invention is a pebble tossed in the pond, innovation is the
rippling effect that pebble causes. Someone has to toss the pebble.
That's the inventor. Someone has to recognize the ripple will eventually
become a wave. That's the entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs don't stop at the water's edge. They watch the ripples and spot the next big wave
before
it happens. And it's the act of anticipating and riding that "next big
wave" that drives the innovative nature in every entrepreneur.
By
Tom Grasty This article is the seventh of 10 video segments in which digital entrepreneur Tom Grasty
talks about his experience building an Internet startup, and is part of
a larger initiative sponsored by docstoc.videos, which features advice
from small business owners who offer their views on how to launch a new
business or grow your existing one altogether.
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