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.
Business Cards
Here is a little tip. Not having a business card when someone asks is the kiss of death for success. All sales people know to keep plenty of business cards on hand. What if you run out? Even quick turn around companies like Vistaprint require a couple of days to get you a new supply of business cards. So what do you do if you need business cards now?
Here is what I do. Keep a digital copy on a CD or USB Flash Drive. The best format is an Adobe PDF. When you need business cards in a hurry, go to the local instant print shop, such as Kinkos and have them print your business cards from the file on your CD or a USB Flash Drive. I ask the helpful people at Kinkos to print my document on glossy cards stock using the color printer they have behind the counter. You can also request a matte finish and colors if that is what you want.
A single 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of card stock produces 10 business cards and costs about $1.5 per sheet or $0.15 per card. It’s obviously not the most economical but it’s fast and produces high quality cards instantly. You can have them cut it for you but since my card is a full bleed design I take the sheets over to the manual paper cutter and do it myself, saving a bit of cash.
Now for your normal cards I use psPrint.com. You can upload your dual sided full color business card file then place orders any time you need more. This is super convenient and cost effective. Their quality is top notch. And as I mentioned before, you can try VistaPrint, they offer a similar service.
A really easy way to make your business card file is to use the business card template I have here and paste a high resolution JPG into each of the 10 cells in the table. Make sure your JPG is at least 150 DPI (dots per inch), I prefer 300 DPI. This file will be several mega bytes when you are finished.
Action Items
- Make a PDF or Word Document of your business cards
- Get a USB Flash drive
- Keep the business card document with you ready when you need it
Miracle of Water, Key to Innovation
Water is one of the weird things in nature. It doesn’t seem to follow the rules that other materials follow. One of the essential skills to being innovative is finding and understanding odd cases. The better you are at seeing the things that don’t fit the established rules the better you will be able to innovate. Innovation is simply discovering a more accurate view of the truth and implementing your discovery.
The weird behavior of water suggests to me that other rules are in play. If we can uncover what is really going on we will make a ton of new discoveries.
I had planned on writing my own article about water but the same day I received the following article in one of the many newsletter to which I subscribe. Since its states the case for water being unusual so well I figured I’d just pass it along.
The winter months are rapidly approaching. In cities and towns across the nation temperatures have begun to drop. Here in North Idaho, a blanket of freshly fallen snow has enveloped Koinonia House. Like the staff here at K-House, many of you will have the opportunity to enjoy the poetry and beauty – and the needed respites – of the ice and snow of this special season.
Have you ever noticed that ice floats? Why?
Virtually every material substance contracts when it cools. As it gets warmer, the molecules increase their vibrational energy and require more room: the substance therefore expands as it warms. And, conversely, it contracts as it cools. Materials decrease in volume as they get colder. Water is the astonishing exception. It expands when it freezes into a solid. Why does water violate this general rule? Why does water expand when freezing?
The water molecule is a (not-so-simple) combination of two atoms of hydrogen bonded to one of oxygen. Yet this particular combination possesses an amazing array of unique characteristics that distinguish it from any other material known!
The Freezing Process
Although almost all materials decrease in volume as they get colder, water has an astonishing characteristic. As it drops toward its freezing point of 0oC (32o F), its volume also reduces until it reaches 4oC, after which it actually increases. In a pond or lake, for example, this “inverse convection” has the salutary effect of bringing oxygen dissolved at the surface down to the lower depths for use by fish and other organisms. This process continues until the entire area has reached 4oC. As the water cools below this temperature, it dramatically increases in volume, making it lighter than the water below. This ultimately causes the top layer to freeze, which then actually acts as an insulation layer against the very low temperature of the air above. If water did not have this strange property, the entire pond or lake would freeze solid and fish and other living creatures would be killed.
This expansion can have disastrous effects on uninsulated water pipes in winter. However, this expansion effect has essential functions in nature. The rain or dew penetrates the soil, and when it freezes, the soil is shattered into small particles, breaking up the hard earth into suitable conditions in which seeds can germinate.
Why This Exceptional Behavior?
This strange behavior derives from the unusual bonding relationship between the two hydrogen atoms and the one oxygen atom that make up a molecule of water, H2O. The oxygen atom strongly attracts the single electrons of the two hydrogen atoms, leaving the two positively charged hydrogen nuclei rather free to attract other negative atoms. This attracts the oxygen molecules in other water molecules to form rather large, but loosely coupled, frameworks.
These atoms are not in a straight line, however, and the hydrogen atoms are bent toward each other, forming an asymmetrical three-dimensional structure. The angle formed between the two hydrogen and the central oxygen atom is 104.5o, almost precisely that of a hexagonal tetrahedron shape (109.5o), so it can take up this shape (slightly warped three-dimensionally) with little stress on the bonds. Opposite the hydrogen atoms, the clouds of resulting negative electrification attract the hydrogen nucleus of an adjacent water molecule to form what is called a hydrogen bond – the key to water’s peculiar behavior.
These tenacious hydrogen bond frameworks give water many astonishing characteristics, including anomalously high values for viscosity, surface tension, and the temperature and heats of melting and boiling. This results in its ubiquitous role as a solvent, its remarkable thermal properties, its surface tension and capillary action, and virtually innumerable chemical properties that are essential for life.
One would expect that these unique properties would make it a very rare molecule, produced only with great difficulty under laboratory conditions. The reality is, of course, quite the opposite: it is the most prevalent material on the planet, covering three-fourths of its surface, diffused extensively in the atmosphere, and – to the surprise of geologists – also found at astonishing depths in the earth. That such a unique substance should be in such abundance is in contradiction to any expectation of random chance alone.
Snow
Water vapor is a clear gas, which, as it cools under normal conditions, condenses and forms into water droplets. At high altitudes, water vapor can cool to below freezing, but in the absence of an impurity such as dust, around which it can collect, it will remain in this state.
When ice crystals form, the molecules of water arrange themselves in a specific pattern that is determined by the tetrahedral shape of the molecule in the frozen state described above. As further molecules join those already frozen, they give up their high latent heat of freezing, and melt the adjacent molecules, which reform to a shape dependent upon the local conditions of air temperature, wind currents, humidity, etc. Each snowflake pattern is unique to itself, but is always based upon the hexagonal bonding pattern of the ice crystals familiar to us all.
Snow also has a constructive role in the ecological cycle. It filters dust out of the air, absorbs nitrogen which then enters the soil, and acts as an insulating blanket to the plants and roots in the ground. The difference in temperature between the air and the ground covered by two feet of snow can be as much as 40oC.
When snow melts, it requires considerable heat to affect this, and therefore melts slowly, lowering the rate of melt water and reducing the flooding that could occur if the latent heat of freezing were lower.
In addition to all these unique properties, snow also has the added ability of reflecting all the colors of the spectrum to yield pure white. Is no wonder that we often find ourselves in awe of the sheer beauty of a layer of freshly fallen snow. May the tell-tale signs of winter throughout the coming months serve to remind you of the wonderful works of our Lord.
If one very simply thing like water can be so amazing, just think about how many innovations and new understandings are possible if you are willing to look with an open mind.
Action Items
- List three (3) things that break the accepted rules. These can be physical items, behaviors, anything.
- List the basic assumptions that go into making the rule.
- List some things that were previously thought to be impossible that would become possible if that assumption was changed.
- List some changes you would like to see happen that would occur if a basic assumption was changed. Choose any assumption personal, scientific, popular, anything.
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
RoundSquareTriangle.com