November 25, 2009
The entrepreneurship area at Stanford sponsors the GIT annually. Radford decided to participate this year. I was on the committee to run the event and it was the best “service” function I am involved in — beats the daylights out of faculty senate…
Student teams get a question of social significance and have 8 days to demonstrate a solution on youtube. This years question was given that the low savings rate in nations such as the US may have contributed to the global economic collapse (no Keynesians at Stanford…) how can we make saving fun?
The winners at Radford are listed below – look at some of them!
Leave a Comment » | 
Ideation | Tagged: GIT, global innovation tournament, Radford, RU, Stanford | 
Permalink
Posted by gschirr
October 7, 2009
I have written about the UIC Innovation Center (sponsored by Motorola) and the multi-discipline (MBA-Design-Engineering) class on product innovation offered by the center before.
“Housed in a former grocery store on the UIC campus, the center has flexible space, industrial size bean bag chairs, rapid prototyping machines and the feel of a start-up (except for expresso machines or ping pong tables).
The origin of the center was a year long innovation class that combines MBA students, design students and engineering students. The class is sponsored by a company that seeks innovation ideas.”
Dell is funding the class this year. BusinessWeek has an interesting article about their motives in doing so:
http://tinyurl.com/UICInnovation
Leave a Comment » | 
Innovation education | Tagged: Al Page, Business Week, cross functional teams, Dell, Joe Cherian, Motorola, teaching innovation | 
Permalink
Posted by gschirr
September 7, 2009
In my previous post I talked of two theories/ideas that are popular in marketing despite having a preponderance of evidence that they are inneffective or untrue:
- Group brainstorming or focus groups for idea generation
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Several readers either posted or e-mailed suggested additions to the list (I did not vet their assertions):
You only use 10% of your brain. It seems the evidence for this claim came from an experimenter who slowly peeled brain material from a pigeon and looked for cognitive impairment(!)
Cost-cutting from preventative medicine. A friend in healthcare says that accept for a few conditions, evidence indicates that prevention costs money.
Product life-cycle. A marketing professor challenged me to find a study that predicts a life-cycle unless it is deliberately managed. If the model doesn’t predict it may be a tautology or even and ad-hoc justification for mismanagement.
Any thoughts on these or would you propose more???
Leave a Comment » | 
Uncategorized | Tagged: Brainstorming, cost savings from preventative medicine, focus groups, group ideation, maslow's hierarchy of needs, product lifecycle, use 10% of your brain, zombie theory | 
Permalink
Posted by gschirr
August 25, 2009
A cross-discipline approach to innovation education
A week ago Friday the UIC Innovation center held an open house and reception for academics attending the AMA Summer conference in Chicago. Al Page, professor of Marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Stefanie Lenway, Dean of the UIC Business School discussed the Center, which was funded from a multi-million dollar grant from Motorola.
Housed in a former grocery store on the UIC campus, the center has flexible space, industrial size bean bag chairs, rapid prototyping machines and the feel of a start-up (except for expresso machines or ping pong tables).
The origin of the center was a year long innovation class that combines MBA students, design students and engineering students. The class is sponsored by a company that seeks innovation ideas. Motorola was an early sponsor and was pleased with the results.
There was an impressive collection of new product development scholars at the conference in addition to Dr. Page, including Abbie Griffin, Anthony Di Benedetto, Gina Colarelli O’Connor , Peter Koen, and many others.
More about the exciting interdisciplinary educational effort at:
http://randdlab.com/visions/january06/education.php
Leave a Comment » | Ideation, Innovation education, communication | Tagged: Abbie Griffin, Al Page, Anthony Di Benedetto, Gina Colarelli O'Connor, Innovation education, NPD education, Peter Koen, Stefanie Lenway | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
August 12, 2009
It is hard to totally disprove a theory or idea in social sciences — there is always some possibility that a different experimental design or a new sample will show that it works in certain circumstances. However, if we are scientists we must be willing to discard an idea or theory after a reasonable number of rigorous studies have failed to find support.
Sometimes that doesn’t seem to happen even after significant evidence is in. If an idea or theory is intuitive or attractive it may live on even after significant counter evidence is in place. Two examples leap to my mind:
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and
- Brainstorming and Group Ideation
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is probably one of the most tested hypotheses of social psychology. There is evidence in favor of the categories of needs, although they may be modified and updated, but there is not evidence of a hierarchy of the needs.
Despite the extensive evidence, a textbook I use in Sales Management bases its argument for non-monetary compensation on the hierarchy. I saw a paper delivered in a conference recently that was totally based on the hierarchy. Maslow’s hierarchy seems so intuitively appealing that empirical evidence is not sufficient to kill it.
Brainstorming and Focus groups for ideation continues, as I noted in a recent posting, despite 50 years of evidence that compared to group methods, individual brainstorming or interviewing:
- Generated more ideas,
- Generated better ideas,
- Generated the best ideas, and
- Better discerned the best ideas.
However group methods are fun and create an illusion of effectiveness.
If hundreds of studies cannot dissuade researchers and practitioners from bad theory, what should a social scientist do? (Rule out silver bullets and head shots…)
Can you suggest other candidates for a list of zombie theories — bad theory and ideas that linger well beyond death?
2 Comments | Customer Research Methods | Tagged: bad theory, Brainstorming, focus groups, illusion of effectivity, maslow's hierarchy of needs, zombie theory | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
July 23, 2009
I was surprised to find an article in a leading innovation journal that summarized a recent research paper on brainstorming. The summary stated that in contrast to most past studies this one showed that group ideation may reduce the number of ideas but it produced some of the best ones.
Fifty years of careful experiments have shown conclusively that group brainstorming reduces
- the number of ideas and
- the average quality of ideas
generated compared with individual interviews or brainstorming. In short, group brainstorming kills ideas.
Focus groups as well … when it comes to creating or ranking ideas
I am reworking an article on customer research for innovation. The empirical evidence about the use of group methods is truly overwhelming: hundreds of studies over the past 50 years and multiple reviews and meta-analyses of the empirical results show that individual interviews or individuals brainstorming alone are superior to brainstorming groups or focus groups in generating ideas, measured by:
- Quantity of ideas and
- Average QUALITY of ideas.
The new study
Therefore I went to the new study with keen interest. It turns out that the journal was 100% wrong — the study (Girotra et. al, working paper) was fully consistent with all of the past research. (Always go to the source — don’t trust the review.) The study was interesting because it took the results several steps further.
Group methods (compared to individual ideation):
- Produce significantly fewer ideas
- Generate ideas of lower average quality
- Produce fewer of the very best ideas, and
- In addition, groups are not effective at evaluating or ranking generated ideas.
The paper found that add-on ideas building on others ideas were generally lower quality than individual ideas. In short group ideation stinks.
An earlier version of the working paper is posted at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1082392
I will post my working paper in a future posting.
11 Comments | Customer Research Methods, Ideation, experiential innovation | Tagged: Brainstorming, brainstorming kills ideas, Customer Research Methods, focus groups, focus groups kill innovation, Girotra, group ideation, group research for innovation, Terwiesch, Ulrich | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
June 22, 2009
A great article on innovation in todays WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204830304574133562888635626.html
Look away from the lampost
I suppose a cynic might claim that “great” means that it agrees with the recurring themes and principles discussed in this blog. Specifically:
- Storytelling,
- Involving users
- Lead Users
- Deep customer information (ethnography)
- Probe and Learn
as well as other ideas.
Take the time to read it!
Leave a Comment » | Co-creation or User collaboration, Customer Research Methods, Experiment, Ideation, experiential innovation | Tagged: crummy trials beat deep thinking, Ethnography, Ideation, lead users, probe and learn, Storytelling, wall street journal | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
June 15, 2009
Business on Twitter
Commercialization of the social networks is inevitable. Dell has posted over $2,000,000 in sales.
[ RT @mashable Making Millions via Twitter: @DellOutlet Surpasses $2 Million in Sales http://bit.ly/NkKHR ]
Social Networks and Medicine
Social networks may have implications for the delivery of services.
The doctor who makes house calls is at best a niche market (see “Royal Pains”) but there is presumably a benefit to more interaction between a patient and the doctor. The potential for improved service is discussed in this NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/health/11chen.html?_r=1&hpw
Leave a Comment » | Internet effects, Online service delivery, communication | Tagged: Dell, online social networks, service and networks, Twitter | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
July 28, 2009
Coca-cola has developed new dispensing machines that contain up to thirty flavors that can produce up to 100 different types of soda. The machines can be reset realtime and communicate so that coke can introduce a new soft drink and observe sales results immediately.
This is “rapid protoyping,” “probe and learn,” and “effectuation” for sweetened drinks — strategies usually associated with high tech products. Read the details in the Information Week article:
http://tinyurl.com/qrddol
The next step?
Why not employ the technology in vending machines and allow users to create their own drinks? COLA CO-CREATION
Leave a Comment » | Co-creation or User collaboration, Customer Research Methods, Experiment, Internet effects, Process Innovation, communication, experiential innovation | Tagged: Co-creation, coca cola, Coke, cola co-creation, effectuation, probe and learn, rapid prototyping | Permalink
Posted by gschirr
