Democratizing Innovation

The speaker begins the lecture talking about the book Democratizing Innovation and how it turns much of how we think about innovation economics on its head. Rather than manufactures working in reliance on patents, many of the most useful innovations come from lead users, who innovate because they need, can and love to, and then share their inventions freely with others. The professor talks about how users in most cases not the manufactures were responsible for creating the major innovations and responsible for the first device used in field developed and built. A quote from the lecture ““Traditionally, innovation is thought of as something manufacturers do....I found out that innovation didn’t come from manufacturers at all. Our research discovered that users develop many major new products. It turns the economics on its head. ”.

The speaker talks about innovation often comes from users toying around with products to fit their needs. For example he showed a car that was modified after mount ST. Helens erupted. Also talked about irrigation systems and how farmers would create tools from what they had around them. But Manufactures often take the credit for these innovations or a variation of the innovation because they often have the patents for these products.

He also talks about lead users and that only lead users innovations form the basis for the new products and services of value to manufactures. Lead users innovate at the leading edge of markets. He talks about many users innovate not just the lead users. For an example he says that in his very class there were students that modified their back packs. Also talks about personal hydration system developed by a surgeon. They had a skill the equipment and the need for the product so there was innovation. 

The speech is basically saying that manufactures are usually behind the need for consumers and this leads to users modifying product designs to improve the product which would fill a need that the manufactures were not aware of. also that users innovating is good thing as increases social welfare and free commons.

Innovation through design thinking

This speech deals with Tim Brown talking about design thinking and how it leads to innovation. He goes on to say that design thinking is supported by a rich set of tools, processes, roles and environment. He then talks about inspiration and that the more insights you have the inspiration that you have and the easier it is for you to be innovative. And this starts with empathy. You have to go out into the world and learn to see it through their perspective and seeing things from their viewpoint. For example he goes into a hospital and looks at the perspective of a patient in an emergency room. It is important to learn and understand people on multiple levels. 

The speaker also went to a Nascar pit crew and compared it to the hospital in the way that it was very time based and that they also encountered many emergencies through their work. You can draw inspiration not just from what you are trying to solve put any thing similar in the world. One quote form the speech was “Insights are about getting out into the world, connecting with new things. Designers see the world as a source of innovation, not just validation. ”

Also an idea might go through literally hundreds if iterations of prototypes.  Also saying prototypes do not have to be physical things it can just be the idea of the product of the improving of a service or a product. The speaker shows a video of a prototype in the making where a woman explains a service. He then talks about different types of prototypes such as prototypes that validate your product or service.

He uses story telling to develop and express ideas. This is important to get your ideas out into the world. This helps to sell your idea. Also use the story to provide the framework for creating ideas. Ad Often design is  for multiple stake holders and the store helps to simplify the idea itself. The story can also be experimental.

He finishes off by talking about culture. its about being inspired and inspiring people by what's going  on in the world.

UC Berkley video

The video focuses on the collabreation of people using cloud computing and focusing on rapid collaberation. It is important to focus on gaining the largest and most quality amount of knowledge from a diverse amount of people. Also it is improtant to use this information in a way that will benifit your company. By using knowledge for departments like reaserch and development in order to ahead of the cruve on what ever your company is specialzing in. The speakers brought this into focus when they talked about cloud computing and the sharing of information. To breifly summarize the video want organizations to focus on collective intelligence in cloud computing in order to gain an industrail advantage.

Blog Assignment #7 (Due 4:00 pm Nov 15): Describe a neural network application in one of the following areas: marketing, finance, manufacturing, healthcare, information systems, ...

 

I am choosing to talk about a neural network in the marketing area.

Neural networks are being increasingly used for marketing applications for example predicting customers demand and segmenting customers into well-defined categories. Applications like NeuroXL Predictor are getting increasingly easy to use and are well integrated with Microsoft Excel. All an analyst   needs to do is specify the inputs and add a couple of parameters and the optimal solution is chosen. Producing accurate forecasts is a critical activity for any marketing group or organization. Inaccurate or misleading forecasts can result in missed targets, improperly allocated resources, and many other problems.

Applications like NeuroXL are good for predicting forecasts and customer demands using the data that you have. The neural networks take the data and looks at it the way a brain would and it learns. It tries to find patterns in the inputs and also put data into specific categories.

Creating Inspired Collective Intelligence

 

Video on YouTube talked creating inspired intelligence. The speaker starts off by talking about margin of difference which is the difference from being ordinary and extraordinary. The main thing that narrows the gap in marginal difference is “Pull”. Pull is the what makes people feel that they have a stake in what they are doing and that they are getting something out of there extra effort. The things that stimulate pull are “Clear” ,“Big Picture”, and “Inclusive”.  The five keys to the Margin of difference are Social Networks, Social Capital, Conversations, Engagement Process, and Individual Thinking.

Social Networks are the web of connections between other people and people go to other people with questions before they will go to a database or a manual. The optimal network is very diverse and includes everyone with a stake in the business.

Social Capital creates the environment. Social capital is the goodwill between people and  you are one the same wave length as one another.

Conversation is the heart of the organization it pumps the information in the organization. Organizations need to have the conversations that build ideas.

Individual thinking is the foundation on which the other four keys are built. These are the people that go the extra step to be inspired instead of ordinary.

Collaboration and Collective Intelligence

The video features speakers Trebor Scholz, Cory Ondrejka,  Mizuko Ito, and host Thomas Malone. They talk about how that now that it is possible to work and communicate with people around the world at any given time what are we doing with this new technology. They talk about how we use the things like the internet to use collaboration with people in order to become more innovative.

The host talks about how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses amateurs in order to find things like craters on the surface of Mars. They gather information and use the data to the best of their ability this is an example of how we can use new technology in order to collaborate with more people than every and use increasing returns to our advantage.

I think that this is a good comment from Speaker Mizuko Ito “Rich media content is becoming the vocabulary through which we traffic and communicate and share, the way we tell other people who we are, our interests, and how we affiliate. I call this process hypersociality: it’s social life, sharing, communication, augmented by a dense set of media signifiers.” This is basically saying that we as a culture are changing the way we interact and collaborate with other people and it is becoming much easier to do so. If we continue to improve on these networks and learn to share and innovate more effectively we can become a much more efficient society.  

The speakers also talk about he downside to the increase in people using social networks. The large number of users is an incredible strain on the networks that support these social sites. It has become very expensive to increase the size of these server farms. There is also a downside for these users of social network site in that they can get to caught up the virtual world. Also the there is a danger of people getting a hold of your personal information.

Blog 5 Zappos

In the video Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, talks to Google about his theory that an emphasis of company culture can lead to success and innovation.  One idea that struck me was when talked about the training process he would offer new hires 2000 dollars to quit. He did this in order to weed out people that he believed did not have the companies best interest. However he found that the pay off was not the people that left but it was the people who stayed because they were the ones who believed in  the company.  Also Toney Hsieh believes that so much in the culture of the company that he will pass on very bright individuals that would help in the bottom line but he believed that they would be harmful to the companies environment and culture.  He also believes very much in the call centers. In his findings every customer in their lifetime will call in to the help center at least once and that if they had a good experience that will stick with them a very long time.

How IT Can Improve Healthcare in America

Healthcare in the United States results in over 1.2 trillion dollars in wasteful spending every year. 17 billion dollars of that is do to medical errors that should be easily prevented by well designed Knowledge system.  The system in hospital would be able to produce reports on each patient that walks through the door which could minimize duplicate test and less paper work for the patient on arrival.  Also instead of doctors hand writing prescriptions they would type it into the system which would minimize errors on incorrect dosages which occur too often and can result in death.  Reducing errors in the medical community would also reduce the amount of malpractice suits which is a larger part of the waste as well. With hospitals able to share information instantly this would allow faster diagnosis and less questions for the patient and less chance for error due to leaving out information that the patient may believe is insignificant. 

Linda Mason Lecture

Linda Mason gave a very inspiring lecture about how she left her cushy job making good money to start her own humanitarian business during a recession to give her live more meaning.  The message of the lecture is that you should find a way to incorporate your skills and interest in order to give your life meaning. Listening to the lecture has inspired me to maybe think of a way to use some of my skills in different ways so that I can feel like I am making more of a difference in the world and possibly giving my life more meaning.

Knowledge as an Asset

Companies must treat Knowledge as a strategic asset because in my opinion it is the most important asset that a they can possess. In order for a company to succeed they must know what their customers want and need from them. Knowledge also helps a company from within and find out how they can be more efficient when dealing with customers or work inside the company. Knowledge is an asset that helps keep the company efficient and when is working efficiently they are also saving themselves money by not coming up with repetitive solutions. 

Increasing Return

The concept of increasing returns is when you add a variable to something you get a higher return. As opposed to the law of diminishing returns when add a new variable and you get a decreasing return for every additional variable that is added to the equation.

 

What increasing returns means in the IT world is that the more you add to your current system the more you should be able to get out of that system whether it be getting information to more people or more people giving info themselves.  If you increase the size of a network then the more use and information you should be able to get out of the network.

Lessons learned

A successful Km is tied to understanding the culture of the communities in the company and that one solution doesn’t fit every communities needs. Also when first implementing the it is best to use a short- term pilot project the way Xerox did in France.

Difficulties in Implementing the KMS

The most challenging part of implementing the system for Xerox was getting its employees to use the system.  Employees did not want an added duty to the their daily work day. The company decided to provide the engineers the ability to author their posts and solutions so that they would get credit. “Once we enabled the them to attach their name, it became a professional peer process. They’re proud of their solutions and are recognized for it” Holtshouse explained. Also there is a danger if taking away resources and time from other priorities.  

Xerox KM Benefits

Like I said before Eureka, the KM system, keeps employees from reinventing the wheel. This is evident from the fact the system has prevented at least 300,000 redundant solutions. Holtshouse, Xerox director of Corporate Strategy,  states “Eureka was developed so once somebody spends a lot of time developing this expensive answer, it gets shared, and other employees don’t have to repeat it.” and “Customers get better service because when it occurs again, someone else doesn’t have to spend that much time on it. It’s also a significant cost reduction opportunity and encourages high involvement in the organization as reps create the knowledge bas and use it.”

Xerox currently saves between 5 and 10 percent on labor and parts costs from the success of its Eureka project. One example of this is when a Canadian colleague had entered the solution to a problem that was posted by Brazilian engineer. Instead of replacing the copier the which would have cost $40,000 all that was required was a 90 cent part.    

Xerox’s Solution

In order to solve the companies problems of loss data and having to reinvent the wheel Xerox implemented two knowledge management systems, Eureka and Docushare. These systems allow employees to access data from across the company, look for previously solved problems, and post problems in the hopes that it gets solved by some one in the company.

Why Xerox Implemented a KM System

Xerox was concerned over the loss of a number of things that come with the down sizing of the company due to the economy and employees leaving for other reasons.  Xerox needed a way to retain the data employees took with them when they leave the company.  By implementing a knowledge management system  current employees could be much more efficient by not having to reinvent the wheel and having place to find information that people across the company had put into the system not having to rely just on the engineers located in their home office.
The ultimate reason the company implemented the system was the same any other company would bring in a KM system and that reason is money.  By having a larger group of people working on problems and pooling data into the system the more efficient employees will make fewer costly mistakes.