Innovation in Practice Blog

Innovation Sighting: SIT Patterns in the Next Wave in Digital Photography

It might surprise you that a single innovation pattern, Multiplication, formed the premise of all photography. The cameras you use today evolved from multiplication. The entire photography industry continues to benefit thanks to this powerful pattern.
Multiplication is one of five simple patterns innovators have used for thousands of years. These patterns are the basis of Systematic Inventive Thinking, a method that channels your thinking and regulates the ideation process. The method works by taking a product, service, or process and applying a pattern to it. This changes the starting point. It morphs the product into something weird, perhaps unrecognizable. With this altered configuration (we call the Virtual Product), you work backwards to link it to a problem that it addresses or new benefit it delivers. The process is called Function Follows Form.

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The LAB: Innovating Pinterest with Attribute Dependency (September 2012)

It’s official. Pinterest has joined the elite group of social apps along with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Google Plus. “Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard that lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.” How popular is it? It is the fastest site ever to break through the 10 million unique visitor mark. A report by Shareaholic claims, “Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined.” As of March 2012, Pinterest was valued at $1.5 billion.
There are many creative ways to use Pinterest. New apps are emerging around it much like what happened with Twitter. But to maintain growth, Pinterest needs innovation. For this month’s LAB, we will apply Attribute Dependency, one of five techniques of Systematic Inventive Thinking, to Pinterest. Our goal will be to create new innovations around Pinterest as we did with Twitter and Facebook.

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Rebooting Your Innovation Effort

Imagine you just completed an innovation program, but things went terribly wrong. So wrong, in fact, that the boss won’t allow anyone to use the term “innovation” in any context. You and your colleagues spent a lot of time, money, and effort only to realize that you did not get what was promised. What do you now? How do you reboot your innovation program?
Here are some tips:

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Academic Focus: Innovation Clubs

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) wants business schools to do more to support innovation. It wants schools to reinvent curricula to be more integrative and convene executive programs that create new ideas and networks. “Through outreach activities, such as business plan competitions, student consulting projects, and business incubators, business schools’ activities contribute directly to innovation in the communities they serve.”
One things schools can do to foster innovation is to create a student innovation club. These clubs create a sense of belonging, instill a sense of identity and purpose, and they extend learning beyond the traditional classroom. Innovation clubs are a great way for corporate practitioners, innovation consultants, and venture capitalists to get involved and tap into a source of innovation talent.

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