Is innovation dead in this economic down market?

A number of leading consultants have disagreed on the proper course of action in this economy. Do we cancel our innovative programs and get back to our "core businesses" or do we stretch and try to take market share in this down time at a reduced price?

This week I got a very good article from Robert Tucker, the president of Innovation Resources. You can reach them at http://www.innovationresources.com. After looking at innovation over the last 15 years my opinion would have to fall with the aggressive approach to always be ready to take opportunities when they pass by. Even though resources may be much tighter, we're still in business to serve our customers. If we have products that do that and keep our finances in order, we can still make progress in this market.

Use your good ideas and think of what your customer needs more now than in the booming markets of the last 10 years. Provide it and you will succeed.
Steve

Factors affecting the Adoption of Innovation

Everett Rogers defined five attributes of innovations: (1) relative advantage, (2) compatibility, (3) complexity, (4) trialability, and (5) observability (Rogers, 1995). The five criteria that influence the adoption of innovations were further defined by Moore and Benbasat as: (1) Relative Advantage-the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being better than its precursor; (2) Compatibility-the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with the existing values, needs and past experiences of potential adopters; (3) Complexity-the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being difficult to use; (4) Observability-the degree to which the results of an innovation are observable to others and; (5) Trialability-the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with before adoption (Moore and Benbasat, 1989).

We frequently don't assess these factors when we put out an innovation and pay the consequences in push back from the users.

Is the number of proposals important

In much of my research we have seen that innovative companies tend to let the juices flow and generate many more proposals. It would be my recommendation to any company attempting to be more innovative to open up the faucet. Set open submission areas for important technology areas. This is consistent with the "Innovate Like Edison" book by Gelbe. The innovative organization presents "all" potential solutions to challenges before they start throwing out selections. The traditional organization picks a few potential solutions early in the process and only looks for ones that fit their preconceived notions of what the solution ought to be.

An innovative consultant can help you find all of the potential technical options for a challenge in your business. We look at small businesses, other industry partners and university R&D sources for potential options. We can help you invigorate your organization with new ideas.

Please Vote, our country needs YOUR leadership.

Steve

The Innovation Gap

The Sept 8th issue of Network World had an interesting article by Johna Till Johnson on whether the Innovation Gap is real. This is a very good question. I've been in both government and industry and have looked at both sides of this equation. Small companies that are hungry and on the edge of finance and technology are more innovative than large companies in general.

The small companies I've worked with to put proposals together for SBIR submissions have been high on enthusiasm and maybe a little short on technical know how. Many of these small companies don't have the staff to help the engineer or inventor to put the papers together. Some of their writing is a bit rough. However, in over 15 proposals with large companies last year many of them were very good technically but didn't have the enthusiasm and innovative spirit that small businesses exhibited.

In reviewing 82 SBIRs last year for military customers, the enthusiastic proposer scores higher.

"Convince me you want to get the job done.

Steve

The Secrets of a Change Agent

This is an interesting article in the CIO magazine of 1 Sept 2008.

The Secrets of a Change Agent by Thomas Wailgum.

This is an exclusive and unclassified report on how Web 2.0 and strong IT governance are enabling the CIA to collaborate more effectively with the US intelligence community.

http://www.cio.com/article/441116/Inside_the_CIA_s_Extreme_Technology_Makeover_Part_

Good Article

This is a great article on innovation.

Innovation's biggest hurdle

• By Sean Gallagher
• February 4, 2008

Innovation is the hallmark of U.S. military success. The ability of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to adapt, innovate and overcome is central to the culture of the military service — despite all efforts to quash it.

So it’s no wonder that the pace with which innovation gets incorporated into the way the U.S. military wages war drives warfighters nuts. Although the research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) agencies of the Defense Department are responding more quickly to the impetus for change, the procurement cycle often drags out that change and dilutes its value by the time it gets integrated into operations.

http://defensesystems.com/Articles/2008/02/Innovations-biggest-hurdle.aspx

The theory of reasoned action

Ajzen and Fishbein (1975) developed the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). Based on their empirical data in a number of industries they proposed that actions by an individual were based on the interaction of two factors. One of these factors is personal and the other is social. The personal factor was termed “attitude toward the behavior” and was based on the individual’s positive or negative evaluation of performing the behavior. (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1975) The second factor was based on the individual’s perception of the social pressure being placed on him to conform to a certain accepted norm. This factor was termed, “subjective norm”. (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1975)
They separated beliefs into two different kinds, those “behavioral beliefs” toward a behavior and those “normative beliefs” about what others thought about whether or not the individual should or should not perform the behavior. This emphasis on attitudes toward behavior instead of toward objects was a major deviation from the fundamental assumptions of much social research of the time. (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1975)

Everett Rogers adopter categories

Rogers specified five “adopter categories” based on their innovativeness: (1) innovators, (2) early adopters, (3) early majority, (4) late majority, and (5) laggards. Rogers distinguished three main types of innovative-decisions: (1) optional innovation-decisions, choices made by an individual independent of the decisions of other members of the system to adopt or reject an innovation; (2) collective innovation-decisions, choices made by consensus among the members of a system; and (3) authority innovation-decisions, choices made by relatively few individuals in a system who possess power, status, or technical expertise. A fourth category consists of a sequential combination of two or more of these types of innovation-decisions: Contingent innovation-decisions are choices to adopt or reject that are made only after a prior innovation-decision. Everett Rogers also defined five attributes of innovations: (1) relative advantage, (2) compatibility, (3) complexity, (4) trialability, and (5) observability. (Rogers, 1995) The five criteria that influence the adoption of innovations were further defined by Moore and Benbasat as: (1) Relative Advantage-the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being better than its precursor; (2) Compatibility-the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with the existing values, needs and past experiences of potential adopters; (3) Complexity-the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being difficult to use; (4) Observability-the degree to which the results of an innovation are observable to others and; (5) Trialability-the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with before adoption. (Moore and Benbasat, 1989)

Technology innovation

Many companies fail to consider the adoption criteria for innovations in their technology insertion plans.