Inertia Impedes Innovation
When I see a headline that says, “Diabetes Breakthrough”, I’m intrigued. When the article says diabetes was cured with a very cheap natural occurring substance, I get excited. How about you? A group of Canadian researchers found when capsaicin, the stuff that makes hot chili peppers hot, was injected into the pancreas of mice with Type 1 diabetes caused the pancreas to almost immediately begin producing insulin. Amazing!
The big discovery wasn’t that capsaicin could jump start a pancreas to produce insulin again. The big discovery was the root cause of diabetes is in the nervous system, not the immune system. That could change a lot of medical understanding. We could see some huge medical innovations from this discovery.
Why is this titled “Inertia Impedes Innovation”? Immunologists don’t want to accept the finding. Did they doubt the results? No. Did they question the methods of the study? No. Why don’t they want to accept the finding?
Diabetes has long been thought to be caused by your immune system attacking itself. Immunologists have been studying it for decades, it’s “their disease” They simply refused to change their long held believe. The findings were potentially disruptive to their establishment.
Any innovation is disruptive to someone. Even if the innovation will help the person they must first accept the change. These immunologists supposedly were trying to find a cure for diabetes but when a cure falls into their lap they reject it. Why? They reject the cure because it doesn’t fit their view of the world.
One might argue that the immunologists now face loosing their research grants to cure diabetes. It could also be argued that their specialty could loose prominence if other diseases are found to have neurological roots. And there is some embarrassment from missing such a simple cure.
I don’t believe that the driving force behind their rejection of the discovery is so sinister. I believe most people would be happy to find a simple cheap cure for a seriously debilitating disease. I believe the immunologists are afraid to change their view of the world.
Anyone could see that the immunological basis was wrong. If a problem worsens despite lots of smart people with lots of resources struggling on it for decades while more resources are spent on it, there is a flawed assumption. I call it the Law of Bottomless Pits. If the results get worse as the costs increase then you’re doing the wrong thing.
The corollary to the Law of Bottomless Pits is if the solution doesn’t require less money over time, it’s not really solving the problem. Before you jump all over something that isn’t costing less over time make sure it’s the real cause of the cost. Other hidden problems can act like a parasite driving up the cost; so, don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions. Use the Law of Bottomless Pits to point you in the right direction.
As with any discovery it opens so many new doors. A neurological basis for chronic diseases means a ton of cheap and easy cures could be just around the corner. I’m excited at the potential.
Action Items
- Identify one violator of the Law of Bottom Less Pits, in your organization or society in general.
- Identify a cure that was rejected because it didn’t fit the current belief.
- List ways you could positively respond to a disruption of a strongly held belief.
- Think of a time you resisted changing your believe and how to finally changed.
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Google Patent
The second I read about Google Patent on ZDnet, I rushed to write this post. Google making patent search easy gives me so much to talk about I can’t possibly cover it all in a single post. This could break open the flood gates of invention and hopefully innovation.
I’ve been talking about Google doing this for several years. The reason I’ve been so interested is the OutCompete method for predicting future innovation. Think about this for a moment. If you had a list of all possible innovations and an easy way to see which ones were already patented you could go down the list and patent the new ones before anyone else did.
Talk about idea factory! This is systematic innovation!
Of course for someone to do this they need the financial resources to file those patents. And to turn it from invention into innovation they need the engineering & marketing capability. Which company has a lot of cash, a bunch of smart people, and the ability to reach a global market? Google! So will they do this? I don’t know. We haven’t shared the OutCompete method with them yet, we would be glad to do so. Since they are opening up a location in Ann Arbor we’ll be neighbors. So, who knows?
What does all of this mean to you? If your company has a specific niche and you want to secure your market or grow a new one you now have some serious tools for doing it.
Its impossible for one company to patent everything, as I said in my last post “Google is an Innovation Amateur“ there are on average 50,625 ways to achieve any goal. That is a whole lot of patents. And how many goals are there? Infinite!
So, you can block off threats to your niche, and quickly generate a series of innovations to ensure your success for many years to come.
When I first learned the OutCompete method I sat down and applied it to a couple of industries, just to see what I came up with. At the time I was working with BitTorrent and trying to figure out new business models so artists could prosper in an environment where file sharing was now impossible to stop.
In a few hours I created about a dozen solutions to the file sharing problem. One of these doubles the artists profits and give them more artistic freedom, pretty cool. I also discovered a serious threat lurking that could completely disrupt Network TV. And it had nothing to do with copyrights. Even better I found a way for Network TV to triple their return on investment.
With a map of every possible innovation it’s easy to find super valuable opportunities. And possibly more important it’s easy to see vulnerabilities while you still have a chance to do something to save yourself.
Action Items
- Use Google Patent to search for term related to your top product
- Estimate the cost of loosing your current top product, including needing to replace it
- Estimate the value of 12 new inventions, including reducing risk from competitors.
Google is an Innovation Amateur
First, let me say I love Google. I was an early Google adopter and still recommend Google products. Analytics is so good that I dumped the custom tools I spent 2 years developing and now just use Google Analytics. And when Google Video was starting out I worked with them publishing videos and making suggestions to improve their tools.
I believe Google is currently the most innovative company in the world. And that is terribly sad.
Marissa Mayer at Business Week praises, “Google’s Idea Factory”. I like the insight offered af Innosight.com. Google’s Culture of Innovation as being their key to success. I was struck by “eight brainstorming sessions each year with 100 engineers” being called rigor and discipline.
When you think of a factory do you picture creative brainstorming? Or do you picture a highly organized system with clock like precision? Which do you think is more likely to deliver consistent high quality results? The random willy-nilly brainstorming approach or a well planned mapped out highly efficient system?
Even though Google has a system for soliciting and selecting good ideas it’s not much more than a suggestion box with a bunch of smart people stuffing notes in it. Sure Google increases their chances of finding a gem by casting a wide net for ideas by allowing engineers 1 day a week to work on new ideas but that still is hardly organized. This is the innovation equivalent of playing the lottery. So far Google has gotten lucky by snagging the low hanging fruit that others were just too lazy to reach.
Do you really think throwing more people and money at the problem is the best you can do? I certainly don’t.
If the folks at Google, or you, want to have a real Idea Factory you need to quickly
- Identify all possible innovations
- Organize each innovation by value
- Predict future innovations
- Follow an accurate map grabbing each innovation in order
I can hear frustrated engineers, product managers, and marketers all over the world screaming “Sure, but that’s impossible”. And they used to say the same thing about human flight, running the 4-minute mile and going to the moon.Just like it’s possible to fly or go to the moon and run a 4-minute mile, all you need is the right system and to believe it’s possible. And spreading the news about the system that makes it possible is why I write this blog.
I’ve worked with some innovation heavy hitters such as Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Nintendo. I’ve also tried and failed to move some giants like GM out of the noose they put their own neck into. But until a few years ago I never knew the real system for innovation. Now that I do, I want everyone to benefit.
I would love to just spell all the entire OutCompete System here and now, but as can imagine, such a powerful system requires more than a few paragraphs to describe. Keep reading my blog and I’ll explain it in more detail. For now, I’ll give you a quick overview.
By using recently discovered laws of information and systems theory we can describe all possible ways of achieving a goal. Read my article “How to Predict Future Innovation” to learn the first step. As it turns out there always at least 15 solutions for any goal and on average there are 50,625 possible solutions.
If you’re not heavy into math just hold on, for a bit while I explain something to the propeller heads.
All systems can be described with approximately 7 conditions. If it takes more than 7 you’re probably describing a system made of sub systems. Furthermore, any of those conditions fits one of 15 categories. OK, fellow geeks, 15 to the power of 7 is 170,859,375. That is a whole bunch of possible innovations. But if we consider most systems only have 4 conditions that is 15^4 = 50,625.
So the OutCompete System identifies those 50,625 possible innovations. That still is a very large number but look at how we found that number. It’s totally organized by 4 condition and 15 alternatives. Now you have an organized list you can run through. No hunt and peck guessing. It’s totally predictable.
OutCompete doesn’t stop with providing a list of innovations it ranks them and literally gives you a map of step for each innovation in order of benefit to you.
Action Items
- List the innovation techniques you use.
- Count the number of innovations you generate per “brain storming session”.
- Think of at least one innovation your competitor could crush you with.
- Calculate the benefit of 15 immediately possible innovations.
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
RoundSquareTriangle.com