ICG T&C NEWSLETTER on TRIZ and Systematic Innovation, May 2007

It has been a while since my latest newsletter; it seems like this year brings explosion of interest in creativity and innovation and specifically, TRIZ. Do we really move towards innovation-based economy? The presentation "Do you know?" (a link to which you will find below) mentions that top 10 jobs in 2010 will be those that did not exist in 2004. I was not surprised by this fact. Innovation is always about change, but change always involves risk. And speed of changes accelerates which means we must innovate permanently and smartly. And it is exactly where TRIZ can help: apart from bringing a new dimension to generating innovative ideas, TRIZ has a fundamental layer which provides understanding how systems emerge and what drives their evolution, and using this knowledge gives us an excellent chance to create the right future.
 
Successful innovations,
Valeri Souchkov
 

ANNOUNCEMENT: NEAREST EVENTS
 
ICG T&C TRIZ ACADEMY: FALL 2007 TRAINING COURSES:
  August 31, 2007
Utrecht, The Netherlands
One-day Creative Imagination Development
  September 21, 2007
The Hague, The Netherlands
One-day Introduction to TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Business and Management
  October 5, 2007
Utrecht, The Netherlands
One-day Introduction to TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering
  October 29 - November 2, 2007, Utrecht, The Netherlands 5-day Extended TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Business and Management
  November 21-23 and 26-27 2007, Arnhem, The Netherlands 5-day Advanced TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Technology and Engineering
     
FORTHCOMING TRIZ CONFERENCES
  Aug. 30 - Sept. 1, 2007
Yokohama, Japan
The Third TRIZ Symposium in Japan
  July 7-12, 2007
Moscow, Russia
TRIZFest 2007: Festival and Annual Conference
  Oct. 30- Nov. 1, 2007
Monterrey, Mexico
2nd Iberian and Latin American Conference on Technological Innovation Asociacion Mexicana de TRIZ
  November 6-8, 2007
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
The 7th Annual Conference TRIZ Future  2007
  December 15, 2007
Hsinchu, Taiwan
The Second Annual Conference of the Taiwan TRIZ Association
 
NEWS AND PUBLICATIONS FROM ICG T&C
  • A new public training course on Creative Imagination Development launched in April, 2007 appeared to be very successful judging by the follow-up reactions of the participants. Creative imagination based on a systematic approach is essential not only for generating new ideas but also for being able to create vision and recognize existing and future opportunities. More information about the event can be found in my recent blog entry.
     

  • An absolutely unique training course 5-Day Extended TRIZ and Systematic Innovation for Business and Management was launched two years ago for corporate customers of ICG T&C. Based on its success I introduce the course this year for public audience. A goal of the course is to equip business and management professionals with systematic innovative thinking skills, techniques and process of analyzing situations and developing innovative solutions and future generations of business products and services on demand.  
     

  • A new 20-page white paper "Breakthrough Thinking with TRIZ for Business and Management" is available. It summarizes reasons why TRIZ can be successfully used in business and management areas, and gives a brief overview of tools which are used in the process.
     

  • A paper from ETRIA TFC 2007 "Application of RCA+ to Solving Business Problems" is available in the Online TRIZ Journal. It presents "xTRIZ Light" process with a case study. The case study summarizes experience with several similar projects, where TRIZ was applied to identify causes of revenue decrease and generate solutions to overcome this problem. You can also download a PDF version of the paper with images of higher quality.
     

  • In a short article "What Innovations Bring Most Value to Customers" I tried to connect different categories of innovation with their influence upon our diverse needs.

CONFERENCE REPORTS


A number of conferences on innovation and creativity has been ever increasing. Those who are interested in detailed reports on some conferences can visit:

NEW BOOKS
Improve Your Thinking: Substance-Field Analysis
by Iouri Belski
This book introduces the reader to contemporary Substance-Field Analysis— one of the powerful tools of TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). Using this book you will learn: To model a real situation with substances and fields and to identify the conflicts which lead to the problem at hand; To accurately use 5 model solutions to resolve every conflict identified; To employ the 8 fields of to generate ideas; To fully utilize the resources of your knowledge in generating ideas; To consider all the ideas generated together and to synthesize them into solution concepts.

Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity And the New Science of Ideas
by Richard Ogle
"In this provocative book, Richard Ogle crystallizes the nature of this shift, and boldly outlines “a new science of ideas.” The key resides in what he calls “idea-spaces,” a set of nodes in a network of people (and their ideas) that cohere and take on a distinctive set of characteristics leading to the generation of breakthrough ideas. These spaces are governed by nine laws--illuminated in individual chapters with fascinating stories of dramatic breakthroughs in science, business, and art." (Amazon.com)

The Innovative Leader: How to Inspire Your Team and Drive Creativity
by Paul Sloane
"The Innovative Leader stresses the importance of innovation and creativity in modern business to help organizations secure competitive advantage over rivals. It shows how to apply methods of innovation and creativity to the individual, to business peers, and to the organization. Numerous international examples illustrate how organizations such as Virgin, Body Shop, Disney, and 3M have benefited from this approach, encouraging excellence and entrepreneurship through challenging goals that keep employees motivated and engaged." (Amazon.com)
Hidden in Plain Sight: How to Find and Execute Your Company's Next Big Growth Strategy
by Erich Joachimsthaler
"And perhaps worst of all, the next big idea, which was sitting right next to you all the time, is suddenly seized upon by a smaller, more nimble competitor; small firms so often see what big ones are blind to. You ask yourself, "Why didn't we think of that?" The reason is that we're looking from the inside-out, while they're looking from the outside-in." (Langdon Morris)
Creativity Today
by Igor Byttebier and Ramon Vullings
"If you want to learn how to generate and enrich ideas more easily. If you want to become an inspiring coach for creative sessions. If you want to grasp the do’s and don’ts of applying creativity in organisations. If you want to find inspiration in recent cases of creative organisational change. It’s all in the book Creativity Today."
(creativitytoday.com)
The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
by Seth Godin
"According to bestselling author Seth Godin, what really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly, while staying focused and motivated when it really counts. Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt-until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it." (Amazon.com)
 
ON THE WEB: INNOVATION, TRIZ, CREATIVITY

As usual, we continue to update you with a selection of recommended recent papers and other web resources in the areas of TRIZ, Creativity, and Innovation.

  • Report: Innovation Champions and Networks Survey (PDF)
    A report by Innovation Labs LLC. What matters more and what matters less for permanent innovation? An interesting part of the survey was that most of respondents stated that "human dimension" - ability to think properly, have time for thinking - adds much higher value to permanent innovation than, say, software tools supporting innovation.
     

  • Report: Innovation: Transforming the Way Business Creates (PDF)
    A report from Economist Intelligence Unit in association with Cisco on a role of innovation and transformation of business practices. The report is based on a survey of 485 global executives conducted in 2006-2007.
     

  • Business Week: The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2007
    Annual list of 50 most innovative companies by Business Week. Top 3 are: Apple, Google, and General Electric. 
     

  • 70 Things to Watch in 2007 (PDF)
    JWT, one of the largest US advertising agencies defined a list of emerging product and service innovations in 2007 which will produce most impact on our lives. 
     

  • ETRIA web portal
    This spring we launched a new portal of the European TRIZ Association (ETRIA). A goal is to build a platform for TRIZ community to exchange information, share ideas, and improve communication among TRIZ professionals, users, and enthusiasts.
     

  • Podcast: Innovation Grows on TRIZ
    An interview with Dr. Ellen Domb, Editor of the TRIZ Journal on TRIZ basics and fundamentals.
     

  • 24 Top Disruptive Innovators
    By Fortune: Top disruptive innovators who disrupt existing technologies by bringing new. 
     

  • A periodic table of visualization methods
    Excellently compiled table of methods for visualizing data, information, concepts, metaphors. Each method is illustrated by an example (wait until downloads and move mouse over).
     

  • Did You Know? (Shift Happens)
    An excellent and creative presentation which took the 1st place in the World's Presentation Contents. It is amazing since it is based on facts and figures which demonstrate why permanent innovation becomes extremely important today. I find this presentation very inspiring to think about our future.
     

  • innocentive.com
    "InnoCentive® is an exciting web-based community matching top scientists to relevant R&D challenges facing leading companies from around the globe. We provide a powerful online forum enabling major companies to reward scientific innovation through financial incentives." Interesting and probably very useful service: a "matchmaker" for those who want to solve their scientific problems and those who have skills to solve these problems. However we should not forget that high-level innovation virtually always results from using knowledge of different disciplines.
     

  • Fogglog.nl
    For Dutch speaking readers interested in creativity and innovation, a very active blog supported by Big Tree Marketing Innovators (I am on the list of authors too).
     

  • OIL Project is up and running
    For Dutch speaking readers: a project OIL (Ontwikkeling Innovatie Limburg) sponsored by EU, Province of Limburg, LIOF and DSM is intended for small and medium enterprises (MKB) in Limburg province. It includes 4 phases to create breakthrough innovations, and completely supported with TRIZ. Any interested company can sign in to participate.
     

  • Open Source Car
    The Netherlands Society for Nature and Environment together with three universities of Delft, Eindhoven and Enschede launched a project on creating an open source car. The car's technical drawings and blueprints are freely available online, and everyone is invited to add their own ideas and modifications. The project website: http://www.autoindetoekomst.nl/website/ (in Dutch). 
     

AND THE REST...
 
© 2007 ICG T&C

Disclaimer: ICG Training & Consulting may not be responsible for the contents of the web links apart from those linked directly to ICG T&C' web site.
 

© 2007 ICG T&C