Design Consilience

The Innovation-Growth-Technology Link

I couldn't help notice the parallels between the diagram on "Ways to Grow" in Ryan Jacoby and Diego Rodriguez's article in the Design Management Review on "Innovation, Growth, and Getting to Where You Want to Go" and the diagram Bob Truitt, serial biomedical entrepreneur and co-founder of Hemocleanse, presented in my biomedical entrepreneurship class.

The "Ways to Grow" figure, below,  helps in identifying and prioritizing growth opportunities and ties them to the nature and type of innovation that would be required of a company. Using this diagram requires determining how the growth is going to happen and then matching that growth requirement to the innovation outcome.
The authors state that the benefit expected from innovating is growth. They say that not only is the value offered to the people (customers) in terms of experiences that make life better for them important but it is also important to keep other shareholders and other stakeholders invested in the venture happy.

                                 

For a technology company, it is important to also link up technologies to growth models and market conditions. The diagram below will help a company link the technology innovation type to the the growth model . Technologies that are highly innovative, which have high barriers to entry and high clinical value (clinical value translates to market value) will offer the highest profit margin and be sustainable over the longer term unlike commodity products.

                                        
 

What is interesting is mapping the innovation-growth diagram to the technology-growth diagram. From connecting the two diagrams it follows that ideal technologies are highly innovative and create new markets and/or are disruptive in nature. Such products are revolutionary in nature, while big company products and good technologies are evolutionary in nature. Commodities are high volume products that only see incremental innovation.

 

How A Japanese Puzzle Maker Executes Open Source Innovation

      
Nikoli, the Japanese puzzle maker that published and popularized (though not created) the number puzzle we now know as Sudoku, has mastered open source innovation. They have truly democratized the invention of new puzzles. Nikoli, which makes its money publishing puzzle books and magazines, taps into its 50,0000 readers to submit ideas for puzzles, with the best ones picked for publishing.

The puzzle generation cycle, which is shown below, is entirely customer centered - by the people, for the people. Nikoli is only involved in selecting and refining the ideas. The puzzles they publish are ones that are likely to be successful based on their knowledge and understanding of the customer.

Maki Kaji, Nikoli founder, in an article in the NYTimes (Inside Japan's Puzzle Palace, March 21), is quoted as saying that Nikoli's secret lies in the democratization of puzzle invention. Having been caught unawares by the popularity of Sudoku, Nikoli had not trademarked the puzzle, which Kaji says, in hindsight, was a blessing in disguise. He felt that the reason Sudoku grew so fast because it was unfettered  by IP  rights.

"This openness is more in keeping with Nikoli's open culture," said Mr. Kaji. "We're prolific because we do it for the love of games, not for the money."

Look out for Masyu, Kakuro and Nurikabe in your local daily.