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Saturday, November 28, 2009

4 types of Innovation: Sustainables vs Disruptives

In her post "Innovation Matters: Balancing Sustained Versus Disruptive Innovation" Ann Handley quotes Eric Zeitoun's 4 point definition of two important Innovation Typologies, Continuity intelligently named Sustainable in today's jargon versus Disruptive. This is one of the most concise definitions I have come across.

The four distinct types of Innovations are:

1.Product optimization (which seeks to optimize a product or service’s usage)
2.Brand extension (stretches a brand’s equity into adjacent spaces)
3.Target ownership (to own a greater share of a specific target’s wallet across multiple segments, whether the segment is attitudinal, psycho-graphic or demographic)
4.Category leadership (to sustain or achieve leadership by re-shaping consumer attitudes and behaviors in a given segment or industry).

Innovation types 1. and 2. (referred to as “sustained innovations”) usually tend to build off of an existing frame of reference. Therefore, although safer, they are likely to only generate limited incremental value.

Innovation types 3. and 4. (referred to as “disruptive innovations”) on the other hand can yield much larger growth, but they are also more capital intensive and more unpredictable. Indeed because they have the power to shift the paradigm, they can set new standards and change consumer behaviors, but they require significant time and dollar investments.

Tips to "weather" current recession and pit falls management must try to avoid are outlined in an equally concise manner.

The easy conclusion could be to argue that in a period of recession, marketers should focus on “sustained innovation” because senior management is more likely to sign off on an inexpensive innovation initiative, which can repay for itself in the short term. Unfortunately, what could sound like a really good idea may turn out to be a really dangerous one.

"Recessions usually act in a two-step process as filters or regulators that purge weaker players from the marketplace. The structurally weak players are typically the first to go. These are the companies whose business model is fundamentally flawed or those whose cost structure cannot suffer tighter margins."

Then follows the players whose relevance keeps eroding over time. These players tend to suffer more towards the end of a recession cycle, and generally get hit when they think they have reached the end of the tunnel.

Why do these companies lose relevance? They do so because of their inability to shape, grasp or influence societal shifts, and a lack of vision or willingness to take risks. Organizations that are not willing to constantly invest in ‘disruptive innovation’ quickly become irrelevant and vulnerable in a recession. So what does this mean in terms of innovation? It means that marketers need to find smarter ways to invest in ‘disruptive innovation,’ rather than simply pull the plug. Recessions should be viewed as an opportunity to re-assess the effectiveness of innovation processes. To do this, you must:

•Have a clear strategic goal for your innovation. Make sure it fits into your marketing strategy and your business strategy.
•Create a focused ideation process that accelerates the pace of the consumer’s validation of ideas and prototypes ideas at a lower cost.

Read the full article...
- Innovation Matters: Balancing Sustained Versus Disruptive Innovation Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog (view on Google Sidewiki)

PS. These concepts take an ominous connotation when brought into the environmental, climate change realms whereby the use of "sustainability" tends to lead one's thouhgts. Then that's "Marketeering" for you.

Acknowledgement.
Ann Handley, MarketingProfs Daily Fix
Let me thank Dee Gardner dgmsouth who brought my attention to this article via Twitter.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

The teraton challenge. A review of fixation and transformation of carbon dioxide, Danish work brought to us by RCS-The Royal Chemical Soc.,UK.

A few months ago a Prof. of Chemistry friend at a major Univ in France expressed scepticism concerning the CCS - carbon capture and sequestration, the geological and geoengineering response to increases in CO2 a well documented GWG-global warming gas. (Increases roughly since James Watts invention of the steam engine. (cf. "David JC MacKay's book "without hot air" free online) My chemist friend's objection concerned dangers of stored carbon escape since CO2 is not in a chemically combined and imprisoned form. Of course the physicists, and geological engineers consider that suitably stable, deep sites may be found whereby high pressures in deep wells is sufficient to maintain the CO2 in the liquid, or pseudo liquid (super-saturated) state to remain simple. More audacious consider that by avoiding sequestration in valleys especially inhabited valley even if there is gas escape there will be no serious consequences.

Whatever, I am extremely pleased to find this Danish work via my blog listed RSS feed whereby CO2 mitigation is suggested by physical-chemistry methods which should come closer to meeting the approval of my chemistry friend and perhaps suggest themes of research to improve the overall mastering of our incredible capacity to generate CO2 in energy production,industry and transportation.

PS. I shall run a spell check via my blog post of this Google Sidewiki.

en référence à : Energy & Environmental Science Articles (afficher sur Google Sidewiki)

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Link_ Metaklett-steel grips, Biomimicry and Shape Memory Alloy meanders

Metaklett-steel grips, Biomimicry and Shape Memory Alloy meanders

One rarely gets a chance, when talking of innovations in the very mature steel industry, to slip in such recent fields such as:

A. Biomimicry, ‘Learning from Nature’, whereby scientific and engineering innovations are inspired by performances and functionalities observed in Nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements— and emulates them to solve human problems and meet human requirements.

B. Shape Memory Alloys the metallurgists contribution to the overall field of so called ‘intelligent or smart materials’ and


This opportunity, rife with menace, arose and matured following the public announcement on 3-Sep-2009 by the Technical University of Munich, (TUM.) of their new clip and close, pull and open, hook and loop fastener steel strips. The news was rapidly up-taken by several of the main science magazines More cf. link above.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Materials Science and Engineering Defined: Comment just submitted to the Economist Article: HOT AIR

Materials Science and Engineering Defined: Comment just submitted to the Economist Article: HOT AIR