IP protection in Start-Ups

A Comment to "A Plea for Patents that Inspire Invention"


I read this great article written by James Dyson, when it was shared by Dick Lee on his Value Innovation group at LinkedIn. Please find it in the following link: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cbd5c6bc-87ac-11e1-ade2-00144feab49a.html#axzz1sUf190k7

Why this article caught my attention

Voice of the Customer (VoC) Techniques

Voice of the Customer (VoC) techniques play a vital role within the front-end of an organisation’s innovation process as they help bridge the gap between what customers need and what can be delivered at a competitive price. However, with a number of different techniques available, many organisations are faced with the challenge of knowing which one to implement. This post shares a snap shot of how five best practice VoC techniques can be used, so individuals can improve their level of understanding and weight up which will deliver the most value to their organisation.

Which VoC techniques should you use?

Managing the Front End of your Innovation Process

Front End Innovation (FEI) is one of the top innovation management challenges of our times. The notion that FEI is fuzzy and uncontrollable is being replaced with the belief that it should now be managed in a systematic way to ensure that ideas are created based on informed scenarios and opportunities with relevant customer insights. However, there are a number of different methods to adapt and knowing which one to implement can be challenging for organisations. This post illustrates a snap shot of Geoff Waite’s NOIC (Needs, Opportunities, Ideas and Concepts) and SPROC (Strategy, Process, Resources, Organisation and Culture) frameworks, which are a combination of practicing (NOIC) and managing (SPROC) the front end of innovation.

How do you manage the front end of your innovation process? 

Ideas Change Culture or Culture Changes Ideas

Do ideas change culture, or does culture change ideas?

Jeffrey Phillips wrote a very interesting article on Innovation Excellence: Do ideas change culture, or does culture change ideas?

I had always been inclined that an idea had all the strength required to change a culture, but this article made me re-think my statement.  I used to believe that all that was needed for a culture to change was a strong thought, and well communication, but Jeffrey does make a good argument by stating that in some cases, the idea won’t be as strong as the culture, and therefore it will not be successful.

The Innovation Leader Programme

Members of the Innovation Leader Programme

 

The Innovation Leader Programme (ILP) is aimed at providing industry-based practitioners with actionable and relevant insights to build and improve innovation capabilities and performance as well as encourage and instil a framework of continuous learning for innovation within R&D, NPD and Innovation teams.

ILP Membership is far more than an ‘off-the-shelf’ subscription service, we look to build and nurture a long-term relationship with our customers. We listen to and work closely with our members to understand their innovation process and management challenges. We then develop and deliver a programme of bespoke activities aligned to their needs.

Pure Insight Overview

Annual Survey of Key Innovation Management Challenges for Members of Pure Insight’s Innovation Leader Programme

Which challenges keep customers awake at night?
 

Listed below are the top 4 of our 5 key Innovation Management challenge areas, as defined by our ILP Members, in the 2010/11 membership year.

This short publication provides interesting insights into cross company, sector and industry trends surrounding the key innovation management challenges in the year ahead.

Motivating Your People

Non-monetary Incentive and Reward Schemes

Which ones do you use?
 

Money is usually a short-term motivator although everybody needs a certain minimum to feel comfortable to cover their overheads. Promotion is a very good system to recognize performance which does not have to be associated with a huge pay rise to make impact. Telling the internal candidate they are not quite good enough and then appointing somebody from outside at the level above can be a huge error – if the employee shows they are able for 2 years in that role then that should be enough to promote them or they will walk out on you.

Business Model Canvas

Why should you use the Business Model Canvas?

In this day and age where environments are becoming increasingly complex and fast-changing, companies need to change the way they manage innovation. The very nature of competition is rapidly changing, and to maintain a competitive market position, a business needs to have the ability to frequently develop valuable new products, services or experiences for their customers. This can be achieved by bringing some structure into the innovation process - The Business Model Canvas is a great tool for doing this as it creates a snap-shot of the commercial logic around a specific idea at any one time. By quickly creating a visual picture of the business, a shared understanding can be generated and everyone can see how all the different factors fit together.

Product and Technology Roadmapping

How to Utilise Roadmaps

At the end of the day, to be innovative all you have to do is think about the world differently. But you can’t run a business on thinking alone; you need to create a strategic plan so that your future vision becomes a set of reachable opportunities. Your strategy has to be unique to you. One way to test this is to get a copy of your strategy and replace your company name with your competitors – does the strategy still make sense? If your answer is ‘yes’ then you don’t have an exclusive strategy.

Get Out of Your Cognitive Box to Innovate

"We all need to get out of our cognitive box to understand the content of other's boxes"

Jose Antonio Baldaia wrote an article on www.innovationexcellence.com on the importance of "thinking out-of-the-box to get inside other's boxes". Please visit the following link to read the entire article: http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2012/03/27/get-out-of-your-cognitive-box-to-innovate/

This phase is brilliantly simple, reframing the essence of going beyond your confortable thinking zone and expand your limits with a purpose, giving structure to where its usually misty. It is the link to other's perspectives, or the lack of link, that will encourage teams to find new ways to complement services and develop new ones to disrupt markets. 

Fishing and Innovation - They have much more in common than you think

Innovation and the Art of Fishing

"The critical capability isn't knowing how to fish, or having all the answers; It's knowing how to go about finding the fish and discovering the answers we need." 


Dennis Stauffer makes an analogy for innovation using fishing, and the 'learning to fish', which I found very interesting.

Curiosity Video – Beautifully made, clear and concise message

“We can only pass on the things that we have understood, if we ask questions, and stay curious, then life will have much more in store for us”

Where things come from from Hardy Seiler on Vimeo.

A technique that encourages curiosity... 5 Why's