Innovation @ Merage - UCI Paul Merage School of Business : Strategy/Vision

The Designful Company: How to Build a Culture of Nonstop Innovation

Lynda Lawrence — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:24:00 GMT

By: Marty Neumeier: New Riders, 2009.

Despite its dreadful title, this little book is a gem. Neumeier explains why everyone should care about design (companies that win design awards have 100-200% higher returns, and must-have products are always because of good design). More important, he defines designers as everyone who makes something better, whether it’s an idea, a process or a product.

He also points out the difference between standard business thinking that measures “What is” and design thinking that posits “What could be.” Without the latter, he says, we’d all be driving the same cars and watching broadcast TV. As for getting these new ideas converted to reality, he has strong ideas about storytelling (good) and PowerPoint (bad).

Why should you care about design? Just substitute the words innovation or organizational change and you’ll see why his insights apply to just about everything you have on your to-do list for the next decade.

Definitely worth an hour of your time, I’d give it a 9.0 on the LL innovation meter. Recommended for managers, MBAs, and anyone interested in changing their organization’s status quo.

The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It

Lynda Lawrence — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:49:00 GMT

By: Joshua Ramo: Little, Brown, 2009.

While it’s not strictly a business book, this is the best book for business that I’ve reviewed this year. It is, in fact, a whole new way of facing the future of any endeavor: Ramo suggests that the only way to deal with uncertainty is to accept that you can’t possibly predict anything.

He begins with an analogy from physics. When you methodically add single grains of sand to a pile, there is absolutely no way to tell which grain will cause an avalanche. Then, using examples from Google to Hizb’allah, he explains that no successful organization has a vision or strategic plan that can anticipate all the changes in a global and interconnected world. The successful ones, he says, are those that constantly adapt to change.

For most businesses, that attitude is too frightening to contemplate. Strategic planning, quarterly earnings projections, and overpaid executives are not guarantees of anything. Instead, he recommends that organizations think long-term, holistically and flexibly. It’s not innovation as a growth or survival strategy—it’s innovation as an organizational structure, a product and a philosophy.

This one gets a 9.8 on the LL innovation meter. I’d recommend it for anyone who wants to be part of a viable organization in the next few decades. And if any of our nation’s political leaders have the time, it should be on their reading lists as well.

Merage Students Apply Sustained Innovation to Global Social Issues

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:03:00 GMT

Abstract: Merage School students are tackling problems with global implications — like poverty, global warming, school failure, childhood obesity and prison overcrowding. In the Topics in Strategic Innovation class taught by Professors Leonard Lane and Lynda Lawrence, students start with the basics: disruptive and incremental innovation, Blue Ocean Strategy which promotes a systematic approach for “making competition irrelevant,” and a framework for Business Model innovation that involves a culture of ideas, plus the people, practices and partners that can move an idea to a profitable reality.

Published: 2008/2009

Author: John Gregory

Organizational DNA for Strategic Innovation

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:32:00 GMT

Abstract: Vijay Govindarajan, leading expert on Strategy and Innovation, explains how organizations need to develop their "Organizational DNA."

Published: March 2009

Author: Vijay Govindarajan

Link: HSM

Innovation Trickles in a New Direction

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:55:00 GMT

Abstract: General Electric, Nokia and other companies are creating entry-level products for emerging nations and then repackaging them for more affluent countries in a process known as trickle-up innovation.

Published: March 9, 2009

Authors: Reena Jana

Link: BusinessWeek

When Service Means Survival

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Abstract: In a series of articles BusinessWeek explores innovative and pragmatic ways to maintain customer service in these uncertain times.

Published: March 9, 2009

Link: BusinessWeek

The Impossible Advantage: Winning the Competitive Game by Changing the Rules

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:14:00 GMT

By Andreas Buchholz, Wolfram Wordeman and Ned Wiley; John Wiley & Sons, 2009.

While I was playing Candyland with 5-year-old Ashlynn last fall, she drew a bad card that would have sent her back to the beginning of the game. Her reaction? “I know, let’s play the same game, but change the rules.” Which is exactly the way the authors define their Game Strategy: changing the rules of the game to your advantage--while you’re playing it.

They develop four strategies:
1. Redefining the measure of performance (DeBeers grading diamonds)
2. Redefining the market structure (Red Bull creates “energy drinks” to avoid comparison with tastier soft drinks)
3. Redefine the roles (lawyers changing “jealous aggressive husband kills wife” to “bad racist cops frame innocent black guy OJ Simpson”)
4. Challenge the existing business model (dolls look like babies, dolls are fashion models, now dolls are counter-cultural lifestyle icons).

Examples range from German broadcast networks to pharmaceuticals, the iPod to outsourcing and all support the premise of changing the rules. Their four divisions, however, were hard to remember, and as practical tools for innovation, not as applicable as Blue Ocean Strategy or Christiansen’s Disruptive Innovation.

I’d give it a 7 on the LL innovation meter, thought provoking for someone who wants to break into a mature market or break out of the pack in a competitive market space.

Twitter Is Changing Philanthropic Giving

admin — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:40:00 GMT

Abstract: Welcome to the age of “social giving.” Spurred on by the success of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, campaigns like the Twestival, which was organized on the microblogging platform Twitter, are changing the landscape of modern philanthropy, say industry insiders. Out go the traditional fundraisers, with their extraneous marketing costs and rolls of red tape. In comes a new wave of digital efforts – often engineered by the same young activists that sealed Mr. Obama’s election.

Published: March 1, 2009

Authors: Matthew Shaer

Link: The Christian Science Monitor

What Would Google Do?

admin — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:07:00 GMT

By Jeff Jarvis; Collins Business, 2009

Take everything you know about business, turn it upside down, and that’s pretty much what Google is doing. If conventional wisdom suggests that people should pay for your product, Google’s is free. If you might support that weird business strategy by running ads on your front page, Google’s is absolutely pristine.

In Jarvis’s view, every business has a lot to learn from one of the few profitable companies in these turbulent times. He starts with some counterintuitive Google premises: give control away, make mistakes often, let your customers be your ads, niches are more profitable than mass markets, everything is public, get out of the way.

The last half of the book is where it gets interesting--rethinking the business models of major industries in the Google way: manufacturing, real estate, communications, airlines, insurance, education. There are some provocative ideas, and at the very least, some challenges to long-held assumptions that are worth pondering.

I’d give it an 8 on the LL innovation meter, good for anyone who makes strategic decisions or wants to start the next Google.

Lynda Lawrence is an innovation consultant with Ideaworks Consulting. She teaches Strategic Innovation and Design Management at the Merage School at UCI, and is an advisor to the Beall Center.

TED Conference Videos: “Ideas Worth Spreading”

admin — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:42:00 GMT

Abstract: The annual TED conference brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less). This website makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 300 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week.

Published: Ongoing

Authors: Hundreds of the world’s top thinkers covering subjects categorized into dozens of themes.

Link: TED

Reinventing Innovation in Large Pharma: Driving Future Value

admin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:10:00 GMT

Abstract: With the pharmaceutical industry facing irreversible losses of market capitalization, patent protection on blockbuster drugs, and an industry-wide, mid-stage R&D pipeline gap, this paper from Deloitte argues that it is high time for a reassessment of Large Pharma's business model and the reinvention of innovation in the industry.

Published: November 21, 2008

Author: Deloitte

Link: Deloitte

Does Globalization Lead to Innovation?

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:38:00 GMT

Abstract: Competition is supposed to spur innovation. But the authors of this study found that the opposite is true for domestic firms in emerging economies. They examined 27 “transition” economies across eastern Europe and central Asia to understand how globalization — foreign direct investment, trade, and increased competition with firms operating in their home countries — affects markets and the likelihood that incumbents will develop new products and technologies. The authors looked at data from the 2002 and 2005 Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey.

Published: January 2008

Authors: Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Jan Svejnar, and Katherine Terrell

Link: strategy+business

P&G's Innovation Culture

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:22:00 GMT

Abstract: How we built a world-class organic growth engine by investing in people.

Published: Autumn 2008

Authors: A.G. Lafley with Ram Charan

Link: strategy+business

The Unique Advantage

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:02:00 GMT

Abstract: Innovation is difficult for mature, slow-growth businesses and often results in long line extensions rather than high-profit, game-changing innovations. Companies, especially those focused on food and consumer products, need to rethink their innovation strategies to develop products that are unique and hard to copy.

Published: Autum 2008

Authors: Alexander Kandybin and Surbee Grover by Alexander Kandybin and Surbhee Grover

Link: strategy+business

Inspiration Can Be Found in Many Places, but You Need to Be Looking

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:40:00 GMT

Abstract: How do successful inventors, entrepreneurs and writers come up with the big ideas? Constantly looking and keeping an open mind are important, but the critical ingredient is exposing yourself to things outside your usual purview.

Published: October 23, 2008

Author: Mickey Meece

Link: The New York Times