Innovation in Practice

The LAB: Task Unification on a Guitar (July 2008)

The suggestion from one of our readers (thanks, Erez!) is to use Task Unification on a guitar.  His  comment suggests that players have trouble keeping their guitars in tune when playing in a band.  They need to reduce the time it takes to re-tune between songs.  I liked this assignment because I play guitar, and I have a small collection of electric guitars, an acoustic guitar, and a banjo.  This will be the first time I have applied a systematic innovation process to invent new guitar concepts.  Let's see what happens.

At least two guitar makers have addressed this with electric guitars.  Gibson has their Robot Guitar that automatically tunes itself to one of several tunings including "standard" (EADGBE) tuning.  Pull a knob, dial the tuning you want, and...presto...the guitar tunes itself.  Transperformance has their version, The Performer, which does the same but includes a clever LED on top of the guitar so you can actually track what is happening to each string.  Both have onboard computers and some sophisticated string management systems (pulleys and servos) to do this.   Here is the Robot Guitar in action: 

While I consider this innovative, I see these as the traditional model of innovation:  IDENTIFY PROBLEM - FIND SOLUTION.  These guitars are cool, but they are heavily engineered and technology driven (I don't plan to own one).  The elegance of the systematic approach is that it works in reverse: IDENTIFY SOLUTION - FIND PROBLEM THAT IS SOLVES.  This approach, in my experience, leads to simpler and thus more innovative ideas.  What would be amazing is to find solutions on the acoustic guitar without all the electronics and mechanisms inherent in electric guitars.  That is what I focused on for The LAB this month.

Task Unification is the template that assigns an additional job to an existing resource or component (either internal or external).  We start by listing the components of the product.  Here is the list I made this morning:

1. pickguard
2. sound hole
3. fretboard
4. frets
5. bridge
6. bridge pins
7. dots
8. nut
9. strings
10. tuners
11. tuning pegs
12. truss rod
13. finish
14. bracing

There are two tasks I want to assign, one-by-one, to each of these components:  knowing when a string is out of tune, and helping put the string back in tune...quickly.  So we phrase it this way:  "The pickguard has the additional job of knowing when the strings are out of tune."  Then I try to imagine what the pickguard has to do to make that happen.  A more general way to innovate is to give the pickguard an additional job from a list of tasks, one-by-one, then imagining what problems that solves or what benefits that produces (using Function Follows Form).  This approach will yield a wide range of potential innovations beyond just tuning the guitar.

I came up with these ideas:

For knowing when the guitar is out of tune:  the tuning pegs indicate when they have slipped (rotated due to the force of plucking the strings) or when the string has slipped.  It does this with some sort of pop-up indicator, perhaps gradually to the degree of slippage.  A quick scan of the tops of the tuning pegs could tell the player the status of each string independently and which ones are in most need of re-tuning. 

For re-tuning the guitar quickly:  the bridge pins can be pushed in, perhaps in gradual notches, to place slightly more tension on a string to bring it in tune.  For playing in a band, this would be good enough until the player could use the tuners to do their regular job.  Another advantage is the bridge pins are nearest the right (strumming) hand so its convenient and unobtrusive to quickly push a bridge pin while playing. 

Thank you for joining The LAB this month.  Your ideas and comments are welcomed.

The LAB: Demonstration of Task Unification (July 2008)

Welcome to The LAB.  This month, we will focus on Task Unification.  This tool is one of five templates in the S.I.T. method of innovation.  The tool works by taking a component of a product or service and assigning it an additional task or job.

What I need from one of our readers is:  a suggested product or service.  I will use this suggestion to apply Task Unification to innovate new embodiments.  Please post your suggestion in Comments below.  Innovation results will be posted shortly!

The LAB: Innovation in Real Time

The readership of this blog has steadily grown, and it's time to start demonstrating how innovation works...in real time.  Once each month, I will post The LAB.   This is where we will use a specified innovation tool on a product or service that is suggested by one of you, the readers of this blog. 

Once I have received a suggested product or service (posted in Comments) from one of you, I will use a specified innovation tool to create a new-to-the-world innovation.  I will show results in a subsequent post with a description of how I applied the tool and used each step of the process to create the innovation.  In some LABs, I may be able to include a drawing or rendering of the innovation.  We'll start this month.

For those people interested in the innovation space, my firm belief is that we need to make a regular habit of innovating so we can perfect the craft and set the pace for others.  It is not enough to talk about and read about innovation.  It is essential that we all do it.

Innovation Stigma

There is an inherent bias against innovation despite the enormous value it holds for organizations.  Corporate executives know that innovation is the only true long term growth engine for their firm.  Yet innovation carries with it a certain stigma, a perception in the minds of executives, that it is "soft" and frivolous compared to other hard core business activities like productivity, quality, and demand generation.  This stigma deters executives from taking risk and investing in serious innovation initiatives.

The innovation industry itself is partly to blame.  Participants in the innovation space tend to perpetuate a mystique about innovation and creativity as though it is a deeply hidden secret that needs to be unleashed.  Walk into many innovation sessions and what you see are cans of Silly String^TM, Slinky^(R) toys, Frisbees, and funny nose glasses.  The notion here is that people need to be more playful to have that "eureka" moment and invent the next blockbuster idea.  People are conditioned to believe innovation requires "skunk-works" in a specially-designed room to pursue "white space opportunities."   Innovation is voodoo.

In an effort to differentiate themselves, participants in the innovation space create novel names for their programs and services.  Here is a very small sample: Innovations-Radar^(R), Innovation Cube^(R), Challenge Accelerator^TM, 360-IA^(R), Spinnovator^TM, Idea Bucket^TM, AlphaStorming^TM, Excursion Deck^TM, Mindscan^(R), IdeaSpring^(R), Super Digilab^(R), etc, etc.  The list is overwhelming and it tends to confuse the market.  More importantly, what is the efficacy of these tools?  Do they work?  The granddaddy of them all, Brainstorming, is certainly suspect given the many studies that suggest otherwise.

Is there an innovation bias?  I am polling Fortune 100 executives to describe the characteristics of people who champion certain business causes.  I ask them to describe the typical age, experience, credentials, aspirations, and personality of:

• Productivity Champions
• Process Excellence Champions
• Innovation Champions
• Leadership Champions
• Brand Champions

The early feedback suggests innovation champions, compared to the others, are seen as more eager, altruistic "dreamers" who are out of touch with the business.  One executive described innovation champions as necessary but had low expectations of actual results.  Of more concern is the perception executives have about themselves in this role.  My sense is business people shy away from championing innovation because they believe the stigma of failing at innovation is more career-damaging than failing at other ventures.

The innovation industry needs to play a role in improving the image of innovation.  Fortunately, there are resources like Innovation Tools and CREAX that consolidate the innovation space and help companies make sense of the different offerings.  More prominence needs to be given to the classic researchers in innovation and creativity like Ronald Finke, Thomas Ward, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Jacob Goldenberg.  We need to get back to the basics of what makes innovation work so we can skip the hype.

The innovation bias has to be overcome if companies want to make progress and grow.  Leaders need to address this head on.  How?  Just as they learned to champion leadership by first becoming an authentic leader, they need to champion innovation by first becoming an authentic innovator.