Innovation @ Merage - UCI Paul Merage School of Business : Views on News

In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing

Lynda Lawrence — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:28:00 GMT

By: Matthew E. May, Broadway Books, 2009

Refrigeration without electricity. Traffic flowing without traffic lights. A smart phone without a keyboard. Houses without living rooms. May makes a convincing argument that the human tendency is to add complexity, but subtracting is the key to real innovation.

Using a handful of stories, May explains the neuroscience behind why we leap to less-than-optimal solutions, why we feel good when we complete a Sudoko puzzle (or solve a business problem) and how to get people involved in solving problems by making the missing pieces exactly the right size to provoke our natural curiosity.

In this environment of cost-cutting and limited resources, it’s good to hear that the most elegant ideas emerge precisely when there are serious constraints. And that by looking at what we don’t need to do, we will always find better ways to do nearly everything.

He quotes Steve Jobs, “Focus means saying no to the hundred other good ideas…I’m as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.” And Jim Peters, of Good to Great fame, who starts each year deciding which things he’s going to stop doing.

For anyone in charge of streamlining processes, inventing new products, or just managing more with less, it’s an intriguing approach. I’d give it a 9.5 on the LL innovation meter, because it will make you think about everything a little differently.

Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn’t Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science

Lynda Lawrence — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:22:00 GMT

By: Charles S. Jacobs, Portfolio, 2009.

Take everything you think you know about management and throw it out the window. According to Jacobs, the latest brain science proves that people simply don’t work the way we’ve been taught: incentives and threats don’t change behavior, lofty goals won’t change organizations, and managers would get better results if they did far less management.

Instead, he reports, our brains are hardwired to do the same things in the same ways until a major threat disrupts those habits. At that point, we don’t want to be ordered to change—we’d like to figure it out for ourselves. And we’re particularly good at responding to change via storytelling, not facts.

Comparing Patton’s failure to the success of Henry V at Agincourt, he says that people respond to leaders who can tell inspiring stories, who admit that the situation is difficult, and who empathize with their audience because they have failed themselves: think FDR, Churchill and JFK.

While it may not convince you to scuttle everything you’re doing today, it certainly may cause you to rethink your management strategies.

Good for managers, even better for those aspiring to be leaders.
I’d give it an 8.5 on the LL Innovation Meter.

Do You Matter? How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company

Lynda Lawrence — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:30:00 GMT

By: Robert Brunner and Stewart Emory, FT Press (2009).

If you know anyone in love with an iPhone, you may understand the feelings that Brunner and Emery describe. According to them, this fierce devotion extends past the product to the company, and enables Apple to charge higher prices and be forgiven for any mistakes.

Does this apply to companies that don’t make the latest must-have gadget? Only if you concentrate on designing the customer experience as carefully as Apple has designed the entire experience of an iPhone purchase: the meticulous product design, the anticipation, the storytelling, the retail stores full of techies to answer questions, the exquisite packaging, the intuitive interface, the geniuses who do the set up, the follow-up emails, and the easy (and often free) downloading of thousands of apps you never realized you wanted.

If, and only if, you create a company that is focused on creating better-than-expected customer experiences, you can reap the benefits. That means top-down permission to play, no cutting corners, no incremental changes substituting for innovation (think Razr phones), quick prototyping, and even quicker response to the market (think GM).

While the recommendations are easier to apply to a product-focused company, they will apply to services. If you’re in charge of a small company that needs to innovate, or in charge of design and need to sell your ideas company-wide, this would be a good book to use.
I’d give it an 8.5 on the LL innovation meter—not a lot of new insight, but a persuasive argument.

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.

Why We Make Mistakes

Lynda Lawrence — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:56:00 GMT

By: Joseph T. Hallinan; Broadway Books, 2009

Aside from having the cleverest (and most frustrating) cover in the history of publishing, Hallinan’s new book on the neuroscience of decision-making tells us a lot about why innovation is so hard to accomplish.

For the last couple of centuries, we’ve created a dichotomy between rational and emotional decisions, and most major decisions in business are supposedly made on purely rational terms. According to Hallinan’s research, however, there’s no such thing. Patients with brain damage that didn’t let them tap their emotions, who should have been making decisions better than Spock on Star Trek, couldn’t make even the smallest choices.

Our brains are designed to select between three and five items, and when we get more variables, we automatically revert to habit or emotion. He says you can choose a potato peeler on rational terms, but a car—not so much. Imagine then, what happens in business when you have an infinite number of variables and plenty of unknowns. Bingo. You revert to habit or emotion, and since we automatically distrust things we haven’t seen before, truly breakthrough ideas are killed. Then, of course, we rationalize those decisions because, after all, it’s business and it should be rational.

I’d give it a 9.5 on the LL innovation meter, good for anyone who has to make any kind of decision about anything. And let me know what you think about that cover.

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

Can America Invent Its Way Back?

admin — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:20:00 GMT

Abstract: A three page article on "Innovation economics shows how smart ideas can turn into jobs and growth—and keep the U.S. competitive. Also, there is a five minute video with the author who is Business Week’s Chief Economist.

Published: September 11, 2008
Authors: Michael Mandel

Link: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_38/b4100052741280.htm

Designing the Future of Business

admin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:35:00 GMT

Abstract: Forget total quality. Forget top-down strategy. Design is the engine that can transform a company into a powerhouse of nonstop innovation.

Published: August 13, 2008

Author: Marty Neumeier

Link: BusinessWeek

The Innovation Imperative

admin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:30:00 GMT

Abstract: KM World Magazine interviews John Kao, author of Innovation Nation. Kao talks about innovation and its importance to our nation's future.

Published: July 11, 2008

Link: KM World Magazine

Hydrogen-Powered Cars: Brew Your Own

admin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:44:00 GMT

Abstract: Home-brew kits for hydrogen may bring it back into contention as a vehicle fuel.

Published: July 30, 2008

Link: The Economist

Sleep on It: How Snoozing Makes You Smarter

admin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:42:00 GMT

Abstract: During slumber, our brain engages in data analysis, from strengthening memories to solving problems.

Published: August 2008

Authors: Robert Stickgold and Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen

Link: Scientific American Mind

Learning from the Olympics

admin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:25:00 GMT

Abstract: From GE to Nestlé to watchmaker Omega, companies use the Games to test-drive new ideas—and strut their stuff.

Published: Business Week, August 7, 2008
Authors: Reena Jana, Frederik Balfour and Oriana Schwindt

Links: Business Week - article Business Week – related slideshow

P&G Changes Its Game

admin — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:32:00 GMT

Abstract: P&G is using "design thinking" to tackle difficult business problems. While this may seem like the latest innovation buzzword, P&G is using the technique to generate effective ideas and, more importantly, change its culture.

Published: July 28, 2008

Author: Jenanne Rae

Link: BusinessWeek