Innovation in Practice Blog

The LAB: Innovating a Party with P.I.G. (March 2010)

Here is a new iPhone application that uses the structured innovation method, S.I.T., to create ideas for your next party. The Party Idea Generator, P.I.G., leads you through a series of steps to trigger original party ideas. It has ten different ways to start inventing, and you can add more. It also has over 150 pre-generated triggers and ideas to get you moving. My favorite feature is the special “Huh?” button organizer in case you get stuck. If you want to learn the essence of structured innovation, try this app. It is both fun and useful.

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Voice of the Emergent Customer

Are some customers better than others at developing new concepts? Professor Donna L. Hoffman at the University of California Riverside thinks so. Emergent customers have a unique ability to “wrap their head” around a new concept and improve it. She created a scale to identify them so companies hear the voice of the “right” customer during new product development.
Emergent customers are better at imagining how concepts address latent unmet needs. Dr. Hoffman describes it as a “unique constellation of personality traits and processing abilities that enables such consumers to engage in a synergistic process of visualization and rationalization to improve product concepts.”

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Innovating to Compete

nnovating is a form of competitive behavior. When we innovate, we compete with someone or something. We innovate to survive. We innovate for glory. We innovate to win. Leaders of organizations need to understand and leverage this competitive aspect of innovation to embed it into the organization.
Innovating to compete occurs at many levels:

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