Below is a draft copy of the January 2009 edition of Innovative Issues – Innovation Focus’s monthly newsletter.

You can download a PDF version of this here: January 2009 Innovative Issues

Hi,
Welcome 2009! If you’re like us, you’re excited about the possibilities and hope the New Year brings. We understand it’s hard to keep this message going throughout the year, and even now, only 27 days into 2009. We feel we’re off on the right foot with a historical event – the inauguration of our 44th President – and the inspiring words spoken on this momentous occasion. We hope that this edition of Innovation Issues finds your refreshed and reinvigorated by the New Year.

In This Issue

• New Addition To The Innovation Focus Family
• Don’t Allow Incremental Improvement To Eliminate The Big Bang – GET HUBRIS
• Article Links
• Speeches and Conferences
• Quote of the Month
• Innovative Exercise of the Month

New Addition To The Innovation Focus Family
Matt Hall and his wife Allison welcomed their first child into the world. Aiden Thomas Hall was born on January 11, 2009, weighing in at 7 lbs 6 oz and measuring 19.5 inches. Both mom and dad are doing well and couldn’t be happier. Please join us in celebrating with the family.

Don’t Allow Incremental Improvement To Eliminate The Big Bang – GET HUBRIS
By: Christopher W. Miller, Ph.D. – Founder & CEO – Innovation Focus

Chris Miller argues that companies with lofty goals are often the ones who perform near the top of their class decade after decade. Companies that do this have hubris, and are not afraid to go after the big, game changing innovation. Chris lists nine ways that companies can practice setting and striving for this type of lofty goal.

To read Chris’s article, please visit http://www.innovationfocus.com/GetHubris.asp

Article Links
Here are some links we recommend:

• Finding Money for Innovation: Develop Those People Skills – This Knowledge @ Wharton article highlights a recent panel titled “Street-Smart Innovation to Align Emerging Technology and Business” held at the University of Pennsylvania. The panel says that, in light of shrinking R&D budgets and economic hardship, researchers should develop people skills to help them fight for the budgets they have. They also highlight potential opportunity areas for revenue and keeping retaining current researchers by keeping them happy.
• Why You Need to Get Really Close to Your Customers in a Recession – This CustomerThink article states that deeply understanding consumers and their needs now, in hard times, and creating products that meet those needs will enhance consumer loyalty. By listening to the consumer and earning their loyalty now, future growth and revenue can be created – even in a recession.
• How Creative Thinking Can Help In The Downturn – Edward de Bono weighs on the economic hardship, stating that creative thinking can help. He states that problems should be looked at as opportunities, that designing your future is key, and that creative thinking in hard times can be done alone and not in the traditional group setting.
• 10 Reasons to Design a Better Corporate Culture – The top 10 lessons learned from the best practitioners of corporate culture are outlined in this Harvard Business School Working Knowledge article. The professors state that recognizing that strong, adaptive cultures can foster innovation, productivity, and a sense of ownership among employees and customers is key to having a strong strategic advantage.
• P&G Spreads Idea Net – This Cincinnati Enquirer article highlights Connect and Develop, P&G’s open innovation effort. It outlines the strategy, investment and goals of the project, as well as future plans.
• How World of Warcraft Promotes Innovation – Wait, what’s this World of Warcraft doing in my innovation? This BusinessWeek article gives examples from the video game senior managers can use to challenge employees to learn and think creatively on their own. These examples can be used to improve employee performance and advancement through experiences and not training programs.

Speeches and Conferences
Sustainable Package Design
January 27-28, 2009 | Sheraton Sand Key | Clearwater Beach, FL

Chris Miller will be presenting at this year’s Sustainable Package Design conference on behalf of Innovation Focus and LIFEbytes OnlineTM on Wednesday, January 28th.

Growth Strategies Seminar X – Save The Date!
Our 10th Annual Growth Strategies Seminar (GSS) will take place on Thursday, March 26th at The Barn in Lancaster, PA. This year’s theme will be: Innovation Creativity. Agenda, speakers, and more specific information to follow. To register, please contact Kevin Ringer at 717-394-2500 or email kringer@innovationfocus.com. To view the official flier, please visit: http://www.innovationfocus.com/GSSX-SaveTheDate.asp.

Quote of the Month
“The primary purpose of leadership is to give your customers the ability to do what they can’t do, but would have wanted to do if only they knew they could have done it.” -Daniel Burrus – Futurist

What is your reaction to this quote? How does this month’s quote affect you? Email your comments and reactions to us and your response may be published in next month’s issue.

Innovative Exercise of the Month
Think of a problem or task you have that needs to be solved. Write it down on the top of a piece of paper. Now, think of your favorite song. It can be your favorite song of all-time or your favorite song right now. If it’s available, play it. Think about why this song is your favorite. Is it the lyrics? The music? The memories you’ve associated with it? Write these things down as you think of them on your piece of paper. Let your mind wander while you’re thinking of these things. Write down where your mind wanders to. Once the song is over, go back and reread your task. Then read over what you wrote down. What kind of ideas do these thoughts inspire? How can these ideas help you solve your problem?

Did this exercise help you solve your task? Or did you just like looking at your problem differently? Let us know! Email your thoughts or success stories to us. We’d love to hear them!

Below is a draft version of the January 2008 edition of Innovative Issues – Innovation Focus’s monthly newsletter.

You can download a PDF version of this here: January 2008 Innovative Issues

Hi,
After a whirlwind of a holiday season, we’re all back at it! Isn’t it strange to think that the New Year was less than a month ago – it feels like forever! We hope Innovative Issues finds you refreshed from the few days off we all enjoyed, and trust that 2008 is shaping up to be a very successful year for you.

In This Issue

• New Faces At Innovation Focus
• What Makes A Project Go Well – A Survey
• Hunting for Hunting Grounds: You’re Personal Journey – More Scouting
• Article Links
• Quote of the Month
• Innovative Exercise of the Month

New Faces At Innovation Focus
The New Year brings two new faces to the Innovation Focus family. We’ll get their pictures up on the website soon. For now, please read below about the two newest members of our team.

Steve Geist
Coming to us by way of Gamestop, Steve’s role with Innovation Focus is to produce our projects by helping with internal technography, travel, supply coordination and design among many other activities. He will also be helping with project management. Steve is an extremely skilled artist, having earned a BFA in Illustration from the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design. We’re all looking forward to our self-portraits once he’s finished with them.

Matt Hall
Matt is the newest face around our offices. He is also our newest video guru, having several years of video production experience, including time at the Pennsylvania Cable Network. Now retired from his days in amateur sketch comedy, Matt will be a project manager here, as well as helping with technography and assisting with LIFEbytes online. So far, Matt has been instrumental in organizing our morning coffee runs.

What Makes A Project Go Well – A Survey
By Andrew Zenyuch

Andrew asked the Innovation Focus staff: What makes a project go well? The response he got surprised him.

To read Andrew’s article, please click here.

Hunting for Hunting Grounds: You’re Personal Journey – More Scouting
By Christopher W. Miller, Ph.D.

Chris decided to give more time for scouting because, frankly, there’s a lot of areas to sample out there.

To get a detailed outline of the business version of this process, send us a note and we will send you a draft of Chapter 2 – Hunting for Hunting Grounds from the PDMA ToolBook I.

Article Links
Here are some links we recommend:

• Ignite Innovation Buzz – This article was originally written by our Chris Miller and Gary Graziano of High Concrete Structures, Inc., in July of 2004. It is featured in Lancaster Business 2 Business Magazine’s Collector’s Issue of Essential Classics from 2000-2007 this month. You may recognize the last part from a separate article late last year. The Editor of Lancaster Business to Business includes this note before the article: Talk about shelf life! When Miller & Graziano created this analysis, firms were just beginning to preoccupy themselves with managing innovation. Now three and a half years after we published their July 2004 tactics, it’s astonishing how relevant every part remains.
• Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike – This New York Times article talks about the “curse of knowledge,” which means that once you’ve become an expert in a particular subject, it’s hard to imagine not knowing what you do. In order to properly innovate, it argues that those innovators caught in this “curse” must bring things back to basics and down from their level of expertise. This paradigm shift is where innovation lives. (log in required)
• 10 Worst Innovation Mistakes In A Recession – Bruce Nussbaum, assistant managing editor for BusinessWeek, responsible for coverage of design and innovation, weighs in on the 10 worst mistakes a CEO could make in the now or soon-to-happen recession.
• The Accidental Innovator – The Economist profiles Evan Williams, the founder of Blogger and Twitter. Evan had 3 insights that lead him to where he is today: First that genuinely new ideas are, well, accidentally stumbled upon rather than sought out; second, that new ideas are by definition hard to explain to others, because words can express only what is already known; and third, that good ideas seem obvious in retrospect.
• Napkin PC Concept Utilizes Multi-Touch E-Paper Display and RF Technology – CES wrapped up on January 10th with a ton of cool, new and innovative ideas coming out of it. Numerous blog and news sites have been covering the products and happenings. One of our favorite working concepts coming out of CES is the Napkin PC. We love it because we can finally get all of our brilliant ideas from our bar napkins onto our PCs without worrying about spilling beer all over them.

Quote of the Month
“The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out. Every mind is a room packed with archaic furniture. Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it.”- Dee Hock – Founder and former CEO – Visa

What is your reaction to this quote? How does this month’s quote affect you? Email your comments and reactions to us and your response may be published in next month’s issue.

Innovative Exercise of the Month
Think of a task or a problem that needs to be solved. Now grab the magazine that’s closest to your desk – it doesn’t matter what it is. Open it up and skim the headlines, articles, ads and pictures. What do they say? What are they trying to do? What ideas do you get from them? How could these ideas help you solve your problem? If you come up dry, grab your favorite magazine and repeat. If you’re still having trouble after that, grab a magazine as far removed from your task as possible. The more irreverent, the better.

Did this exercise help you solve your task? Or did you just like looking at your problem creatively? Let us know! Click here to email your thoughts or success stories to us. We’d love to hear them!

Below is a draft copy of the July 2007 edition of Innovative Issues – Innovation Focus’s monthly newsletter.

You can download a PDF version of this here: July 2007 Innovative Issues

Hi,
Did we miss a memo? Since when did all this “Back To School” stuff stop popping up? Doesn’t that signal the unofficial end of summer? Last we checked, we were sitting on the beach, staring at a beautiful sunset with a cold drink in our hands. And by that we mean staring at our screensavers and imagining we were there. Oh well, at least it was fun while it lasted. Enjoy this month’s Innovative Issues, and weep not for the pending closing of this beautiful season.

In This Issue

• Our Chapter In The New PDMA Toolbook 3!!!
• 2007 CPSI Conference Recap
• Issues In Innovation Series – Part 4 of 7
• Article Links
• Speeches and Conferences
• Quote of the Month
• Innovative Exercise of the Month

Our Chapter In The New PDMA Toolbook 3!!!
We are delighted and extremely excited to announce that Anne Orban will be published in the upcoming PDMA Toolbook 3! Anne’s chapter, The Slingshot: A Group Process for Generating Breakthrough Ideas gives a detailed look at our Slingshot process, how it was started, the types of results it generates and why it’s different and more useful than its component processes.

INNOVATIVE ISSUES SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE
We are pleased to offer you, the Innovative Issues faithful, a copy of the pre-press version of the article. All you have to do is click here to send an email requesting a copy of the article, and we’ll send it to you in PDF format.

To send Anne a note of congratulations, click here.

To pre-order the PDMA Toolbook 3 (due out in October 2007), click here.

2007 CPSI Conference Recap
By Bree Gillespie

Bree Gillespie attended and taught at the Creative Education Foundation’s (CEI) 2007 Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) Conference. This is Bree’s 7th year attending the conference. In her article, she gives an overview of the philosophy and background of the conference as well as the Creative Education Foundation.

To read Bree’s article, please click here.

Issues In Innovation Series – Part 4 of 7
By Anne Orban, M.Ed., NPDP

The fourth question in this series is:
What is the new product development process on the horizon? (Cooper’s basics seem to be out of favor).

To read Anne’s response, click here.

We encourage you to to read Anne’s answer and send your own responses and reactions to us here.

Article Links
Here are some links we recommend:

• The Business Benefits of Going Green – This review gives you the highlights of the book The Clean Tech Revolution, such as different, successful business models (Toyota), predictions for the future, key revenue sources for the green trend, and how important the conservation of water will be.
• What’s In A Name? – You’ve heard of Google and Apple, right? Now how about the Verizon G’zOne? It’s the first cell phone that is completely waterproof and meets military standards for water, dust and shock resistance. It’s a great example of a neat product crippled by a horrible name. This article talks about the importance of a good name. Innovation Focus can help with the first step in finding a great name for a product or service through our Naming Process. For more information or for a free workbook, send a message here.
• 12 Most Influential Gadgets And Gizmos – Time Magazine goes back through recent history to find the top 12 gadgets and gizmos that influences the direction technology went, such as the first VHS recorder and the first camera phone. Yes, the iPhone did make the list.
• Trendwatching – “(Still) Made Here” – Trendwatching is a great website that we highly recommend. This month they take a look at the trend of (Still) Made Here. They define this as: “(STILL) MADE HERE encompasses new and enduring manufacturers and purveyors of the local. In a world that is seemingly ruled by globalization, mass production and ‘cheapest of the cheapest’, a growing number of consumers are seeking out the local, and thereby the authentic, the storied, the eco-friendly and the obscure.”
• Experience Is the Product – This article talks about the importance of the consumer experience of a using product and how it’s the only thing that consumers care about. It shows examples of companies that do this well and tells us the useful information we can glean from them.
• 50 Best Websites 2007 – Time Magazine – Time Magazine ranks their 50 best websites for the year. Some of these we’ve never heard of before, but were really impressed when we checked them out. Sadly, www.innovationfocus.com did not make the list.

Speeches and Conferences
The Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM)
Chris Miller will be speaking for The Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business Administration. The event Chris will be speaking at, ISBM New Offering Realization Consortium Tools, Techniques and Process for Getting Good Ideas, and Moving them Along at the Front End of B2B Innovation, is in Pittsburgh, PA on Thursday, September 20th.

HOLD THE DATES!
PDMA International Conference – Innovation Connection 2007 – October 1-2 at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando, Florida. Innovation Focus’s information for the conference to follow in the coming months. For more information on the conference, click here. To register, click here.

Quote of the Month
“Wealth flows directly from innovation… not optimization… wealth is not gained by perfecting the known.” – Kevin Kelly, Founding Executive Editor of Wired Magazine.

What is your reaction to this quote? How does this month’s quote affect you? Email your comments and reactions to us and your response may be published in next month’s issue.

Innovative Exercise of the Month
Think of a problem or task you have that needs to be solved. Now think of a foreign country. It can be a country you’ve been to, one you’d like to go to, one you’ve heard about recently or even one picked from a map! Put yourself in the shoes (or clogs) of a local of that country. Spend a few minutes researching the culture of your chosen country. If it helps, adopt the country’s accent for a few minutes. Now look at your task through the eyes of the your country’s natives. How would they solve your problem?

Did this exercise help you solve your task? Or did you just like looking at your problem creatively? Let us know! Click here to email your thoughts or success stories to us. We’d love to hear them!