Innovation in Practice Blog
Academic Focus: University of Queensland’s TIMC
The University of Queensland’s Technology and Innovation Management Centre (TIMC) is an international leader in research on technological innovation, one of the fundamental drivers of business and economic competitiveness. The center was established in 1989 as a Centre of Excellence in technology management. Their goal is to be at the leading edge internationally in research and teaching in technological innovation.
The LAB: Innovating a Corporate Training Program (July 2011)
Corporate training is a $60 billion dollar industry and growing as the economy recovers. As with any industry, significant changes are occurring. Companies spend less on fixed internal resources and are outsourcing more. Learners are changing in the way they learn, perhaps due to the generational shift. And of course, technology has made the social side of learning more available and effective. Training executives, those who manage company training resources and programs, must continue to innovate to address these changes to stay relevant.
For this month’s LAB, we will apply the corporate innovation method, S.I.T., to a training program. Our goal is to find new-to-the-world concepts that improve a company’s training efforts. The method works by applying one of five innovation patterns to components within the training environment. The pattern has the effect of morphing the component into something that seems unrecognizable or ambiguous. We take that “virtual product” and work backwards to uncover potential benefits or markets served, a process called “Function Follows Form.”
Innovation Sighting: The Great Sunflower Project
On average, one of every three bites of food you put in your mouth depends on “animal pollination” – the movement of insects, particularly bees, between plants. They play a crucial role in flowering plant reproduction and in the production of most fruits and vegetables. About 80% of all flowering plants and over three-quarters of the staple crop plants that feed humankind rely on animal pollinators like bees.
But bees are in trouble. Scientific studies have suggested that both honey bee and native bee populations are declining. Scientists fear this will harm pollination of garden plants, crops and wild plants. They could help bees if they could collect simple data about their presence at certain times in certain locations. With this data, they can devise ways to conserve and improve the bee population.
How do you track bees on such a large scale? By assigning the data collection task to an external resource – everyday gardeners.
Innovation Sighting: Attribute Dependency in an Exercise Bike
Pro-Form’s Le Tour de France Indoor Cycle lets users choose or create real-world routes, then adjusts the angle of the riding platform to replicate the experience of riding up and down those roads. This new product has three different features using the Attribute Dependency Tool of the corporate innovation method, SIT.
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