Innovation in Practice

Innovation Sighting: Task Unification with Gifts

Task Unification is a hard working innovation tool.  Task Unification assigns an additional task to an existing resource or component of the product or service.  Here is a clever example from Springwise. It is a service  called "Itizen."  It allows you to physically tag a special item such as a gift or heirloom that links to a website where the collective history of that gift or heirloom is recorded and kept forever. 

For example, suppose your grandfather gives you an antique hammer that's been passed down through generations.  It was used for many significant projects, and your grandfather gives you a written history about it.  You use the hammer through your lifetime, recording special stories about it.  Then you give it to your son.  Imagine how your son might use that hammer through time.  He records his experience with the hammer so he can pass it to the next generation with the complete historical record.  The value of our worldly possessions increases as the collective history is recorded. The item has been given the additional "job" of telling its story (with a little help from Itizen).

Here is how it works:

The LAB: Innovating the Lego with S.I.T. (June 2010)

I just had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Soren Lund present at the PharmaBrand Summit in Monaco.  He is the Senior Marketing Director of Product and Marketing Development at the Lego Group.  He told the amazing story about how Lego markets their product and leverages the power of their user community to create innovation and growth.  It prompted me to search the blogosphere for other stories about Lego, and I can see that the company is quite popular.  Blogging Innovation, Endless Innovation, Stefan Lindgard, and various others have written useful blog posts about Lego..

Rather than talk about Lego and its innovation, I decided to apply the corporate innovation method, S.I.T., to the basic Lego product – the 2x4 brick.  I created these new embodiments during the two hour break following Seren’s presentation.  With a bit of research, I learned there are some 24,000 SKU’s.  While I have some general knowledge about the product (having purchased it for my son), I must admit I do not know a great deal.  So it would not surprise me to find that I created ideas that already exist.

I start with a component list to use the first four of the S.I.T. tools:

1.    Base
2.    Posts (the little round stumps on top of the base)
3.    Tubes (the little open tubular structures inside the base

Using this list, I manipulate the product by applying a tool.  This turns it into a “virtual product.”   I use “Function-Follows-Form” to work backwards and think of potential uses and benefits for the “weird” form created by the tool.  Here are some ideas generated very quickly with S.I.T.:

The LAB: Innovating Water Access in Developing Countries (May 2010)

Shortage of water may become a more catastrophic problem than food or energy shortage according to experts.  The problem affects developing as well as developed countries including the U.S..  For this month's LAB, we will look at how the corporate innovation method, S.I.T., can be used to address such a serious issue.  The following ideas were developed by students at the University of Cincinnati working on the PUR water filtration system from Procter & Gamble.  They are excellent examples of purpose-driven innovation.  You can download the team's complete portfolio here.

 1.  TASK UNIFICATION (assigning an additional job to an existing resource):  Hikers and campers can now experience PUR Trek and the confidence of having filtered water at all times anywhere they go. These 16-oz, single-serving, disposable, portable, and easy to carry drink containers offer a flat design for minimal storage, with easy-to- expand, biodegradable Tetra Pak inspired material.  For quick filling at a stream or other water source, the open top design allows the user to quickly scoop up the cool unfiltered water.  Then as the user drinks from the active filtering spout, all sediment and harmful particles are left behind in the bottom of the container.  Consumers can count on one disposable container to last up to 10 days, and they can be purchased individually or in 10- packs.

2.  MULTIPLICATION (making copies of a component but changing it):  The PUR-2-Go is PUR's latest product targeting the needs of busy students and singles. Its two compartment pitcher is easily filled through PUR's new electronic filter system. Integrated in the lid, this new filter works so fast that it filters instantly and makes a holding compartment in the pitcher unnecessary. The two compartments of the pitcher easily break in two. The bigger compartment can stay in the kitchen while the smaller compartment transforms into a reusable bottle of water to go.  This makes the use of bottled water unnecessary because the PUR-2-Go is just as easy to handle and quick to use. This grab and go usability of the PUR-2-Go makes it more convenient for everybody to commit to a greener lifestyle.

Innovation Sighting: Double Down - Two Innovation Templates in One Bite

Here is an example of two innovation templates in one product.  The Double Down sandwich from KFC removes the traditional bread slice (demonstrating the template, Subtraction), and it assigns the additional job of "sandwiching"  to the two slices of fried chicken (demonstrating the template, Task Unification). 

What I like about this idea is that it shows the power of innovation templates to break fixedness.  Sandwiches have been around for a very long time, yet this idea transforms us to consider other components than bread for this critical role of "sandwiching" - bread slices holding one or more fillings between them.  The use of the Subtraction template in this example is obvious - remove the bread.  But then giving the additional role of holding the other components of the sandwich between two slices of chicken is quite novel. This pattern is called Task Unification.

How would you extend this idea?  Consider applying a third template such as Division. Take one of the components of this product and divide it one of three ways:  functional, physical, or preserving.  Look for additional consumer benefits, markets served, or new efficiencies.

Special thanks to my graduate student, Luke Kim, for sharing this example. 

The LAB: Innovating the Wedding Invitation with S.I.T. (April 2010)

Over 2 million couples marry every year in the U.S..  This fuels the $50 billion dollar wedding industry.  In an industry that prides itself in tradition,  companies must innovate new products and services within those traditions if they want to grow and prosper.  For this month's LAB, we will use the corporate innovation method, S.I.T. to create new-to-the-world ideas for wedding invitations. 

Here are five unique ideas from graduate students* at the University of Cincinnati taking the course, "Systematic Innovation Tools."  They constructed a hypothetical "Dream Catalog" of these ideas for a local start-up design company.  Listed with each innovation is the specific innovation template the team used to create the idea.  You can download this and the other Dream Catalogs here.

1.  "Read It, and Eat It" :  Unlike traditional paper-made cards, the “Read It, Eat It” series of wedding invitations takes a non-traditional way by using edible materials to make the cards (except for the reply card), like cookie, candy or chocolate. Thus, recipients may eat the card afterward. 

• Benefits
  •Unique and beautiful
  •Practical; more like a gift
  •Conveys emotion and sentiments
  •Recipients would feel happy to receive the invitation
  •Recipients don’t have to find a place to keep the cards afterward
  •Less paper, environment-friendly
• Target Audience
  •Young wedding couples who are seeking uniqueness for their wedding invitations with related spending ability and willingness
  •Those who need to send the invitation to recipients with kids
• S.I.T. Template:  Task Unification

The LAB: Innovating an Aquarium Using S.I.T. (February 2010)

There are a 183 million pet fish in the United States, more than double the number of dogs.  Fourteen million U.S. households have fish.  During the past decade, the pet fish category grew by more than 20% making it one of the fastest growing in the industry.  For this month's LAB, we will apply the corporate innovation method, S.I.T., to the mainstay of fish keeping - the aquarium.

Here are five unique aquarium concepts invented by one of my graduate students, Janette Douglas, at the University of Cincinnati as part of her final exam in "Applied Marketing Innovation."  For the this exam, each student was given a product randomly.  They had three hours to create new-to-the-world concepts and demonstrate proficiency using each of the templates.

To use the S.I.T. method, Janette starts with a component list:

1. glass panels
2. lid
3. bottom of tank
4. fish
5. gravel
6. plants
7. filter
8. water

Here are her ideas:

1.  SUBTRACTION (remove an essential component):  Remove the fish.  Make the tank a "plant only" tank.  The benefits are: lower maintenance, lower cost, more flexibility, and more room in the tank.  The target audience is people who enjoy the peaceful nature of an aquarium but don't want the responsibility of taking care of an animal.  (DREW'S NOTE: this idea actually exists today, especially for a niche of aquarium owners who "aquascape".

2.  TASK UNIFICATION (assign an additional job to an existing resource):  Assign the gravel the additional job of regulating water temperature.  The benefits are: no need to monitor water temperature as it is self-regulated, easy to add fresh water without having to worry about temperature, and less expensive as you do not need a separate water heater.  Target audience is people who tend to make frequent changes to their home's temperature or people who live in climates with extreme temperature changes.  Feasibility is a question mark - not sure if this technology exists or could be developed.

3.  MULTIPLICATION (make copies of a component but with a qualitative change):  Multiply the filter but change direction of flow - instead of filtering waste out, the second filter adds components to the water.  The benefits are: easy to add vitamins and other useful chemicals making it easier to control water quality.  Target audience is people who have exotic fish that require specific water conditions.

4.  DIVISION (physically or functionally cut the product or component):  Cut the glass in half.  This creates two separate spaces in the aquarium to support two separate marine environments side-by-side.  Target audience is people who want to enjoy fresh and saltwater tanks.  It could also be used by marine biologists who want to use two separate tanks to do research (manipulate one side and compare results to the other).  (DREW'S NOTE: this product exists).

5.  ATTRIBUTE DEPENDENCY: (create or break a dependency between internal and external attributes):  The glass panels change (clarity) depending on the oxygen levels in the external air and internal water environment so that adjustments can be made accordingly.  Potential benefits: greater accuracy of water composition in relation to the external air.  Target audience is fish hobbyists or scientists needing to carefully regulate oxygen for specific types of fish or plants.

Janette did a nice job on this final exam even though she is not an aquarium owner.  What I like about this example is that is shows how well people can innovate even when they are not experts in the product or service.  I doubt that a person who had never seen an aquarium could have generated these ideas.  But with just a general knowledge about the domain, people can innovate routinely using structured innovation methods. 

Innovation Sighting: Task Unification with the iPhone

The iPhone is an incredible platform for innovation.  As it becomes more popular, it invites even more innovation.  Many of the iPhone's functions demonstrate the Task Unification template of the corporate innovation method called S.I.T..  Task Unification is a pattern that assigns an additional job to an existing resource or component within a product or service.  To use Task Unification in practice, we start by listing the components of the product or service.  Then we assign non-intuitive tasks to some of the components randomly.  The idea is to create weird, ambiguous "virtual products" that don't seem to make any sense.  Then we work backwards from this hypothetical "solution" to a possible problem that it addresses.  Linking the solution to a problem creates an idea. 

Here are two recent examples of Task Unification in the iPhone.  What is unique is the use of a resource that is often overlooked: the charger receptacle.  The device shown at left plugs into the charger receptacle and turns an iPhone or iPod Touch into a universal remote. It’s made by L5 Technology, and was launched at CES 2010.  It controls any compatible device within 30 feet using a free app from the App Store.

Another clever example of Task Unification shown at CES was the Mophie credit card reader device. It lets you take payments with your iPhone using a third-party app and a device that attaches directly to your phone.  I have seen a similar device used exclusively at Apple stores, but this is the first available for the consumer market.

Check out more iPhone innovations yet-to-be-seen.

The LAB: Innovating Your Wallet Using S.I.T. (December 2009)

Innovation puts cash in your wallet.  But what about the wallet itself?  For this month's LAB, we will apply the corporate innovation method, S.I.T., to create new and useful concepts for the wallet.

Wallets are the most personal items we own.  They carry our money, credit cards, identification,  licenses, photographs, and other memorabilia.  Your wallet says a lot about you.  As with food, we try to stuff more inside while staying thin.  Wallets have been around a long time.  Today, the wallet industry is a multi-billion dollar market fueled by new designs and innovation.

Here are six unique wallet concepts invented using the five templates in the S.I.T. method.  They were created by graduate students at the University of Cincinnati as part of their course requirements in "Applied Marketing Innovation."

Innovation Sighting: Social Innovation Using S.I.T.

How do you get people to be more socially responsible?  Here is an example* that demonstrates the use of Task Unification, a template from the corporate innovation method called S.I.T.:

To use Task Unification, we assign an additional job to an existing resource. Then we work backwards to envision the potential benefits of such a scheme, how it would work, and how to adapt it to make it better. In the example above, we create a statement as follows: "The stairs have the additional job of making people want to use the stairs more." Then we innovate ways to make this happen.  Having the stairs play music as you walk in the form of a piano is novel, useful, and surprising.  It meets all three tests of innovativeness.

Let's turn this around a bit to make the point even more.  Let's create a new statement (our Virtual Product):  "The escalator has the job of making people want to use the stairs more."  Now let's imagine ways to make this happen.  Here is what I came up with:

• The escalator slows down as more people use it.  As people approach the escalator and see others on it already, they will be less likely to use it.  Perhaps it makes a groaning sound as it slows down (thanks, Amnon!).
  
• The escalator has a repeating taped message encouraging people to consider the health benefits of walking the stairs (perhaps by comparing the amount of calories burned by using the stairs instead of the escalator).
• Put a handicapped sign on the escalator, or perhaps some other indicator that the escalator is for those who are not fully fit.
• Make something happen at the top of the escalator that people typically want to avoid such as an unpleasant message or homeless person asking for spare change.

Here is another example:  (both of these are from TheFunTheory.com sponsored by Volkswagen):

* Special thanks to Gary Vince from Toronto for sending me these examples.

The LAB: Innovating Social Media with Task Unification (October 2009)

Embracing social media and the myriad of Web 2.0 tools is more challenging than just setting up a Facebook account or adding a “Follow Me on Twitter” link.  Organizations struggle with how to take advantage of the power of Web 2.0.  Where do you start?  How do you tie these new tools in with your current website?  How do you make sure your current constituents are happy while moving the organization to a more networked world?

For this month’s LAB, we will use the innovation template called Task Unification, one of five templates of the corporate innovation method called S.I.T..  To use Task Unification, we take a component of a product, service, system, etc, and we assign an additional "job" to it.  For this exercise involving Social Media, here is how it works.  Imagine your company has a large base of employees in the field.  For example, suppose your company has a large sales force or an extensive network of delivery or service people.  Consider the U.S. Postal Service, for example, with an army of postal workers and letter carriers at over 32,000 post offices.  A key question for these organizations like the USPS is: how do we get more value out of this fixed asset?  Let's use Task Unification. 

I start by visiting a site that inventories all the social web tools: GO2WEB20.NET.  I randomly pick an application from this list.  Then I assign the internal field resources to "use" this application to increase revenue/profits for the company.  Using our example of the postal service, I create this statement: "Postal delivery staff have the additional 'job' of using XXXX (web application) to increase USPS performance." This is our Virtual Product in the S.I.T. method.

The key is to use the non-obvious applications for creating new, innovative services. You have to literally force yourself to imagine the corporate resource using the inherent aspects of the Web 2.0 application to create revenue or cut costs.  Here are examples I created using Task Unification: 

The LAB: Innovating Health Care with S.I.T. (August 2009)

Health Care Reform, as the U.S. government sees it, promises lower costs, better access, and improved quality for all.  Let's apply a structured innovation method to health care to see if we can achieve some of these goals.  For this month's LAB, we will apply Systematic Inventive Thinking to the hospital discharge process.

Discharging patients from the hospital is a critical aspect of health care delivery.  It is a time of transition where one group of care givers stops treating the patient and another group starts.  The most frequent type of transition occurs when patients go from hospital to home, happening nearly 40 million times each year in the U.S.. Studies show that about 20 percent of discharged patients have an adverse event – a preventable emergency department visit or re-admission – within 30 days following hospitalization.  The discharge process is so important that a cottage industry is emerging around it.  Some  consultants, software products, best practices, training, and research studies focus just on discharging patients.

To use S.I.T., we start by listing the components of the service (process):

The LAB: Innovating Shredded Wheat with S.I.T. (July 2009)

“We put the ‘NO’ in innovation!”  The good people at Post Cereal have a new twist on innovation…NOT innovating as a statement of the product's ubiquity and staying power.  “Some things just weren’t meant to be innovated."

How could I resist?  It was just too tempting to use systematic innovation on this simple product, especially in light of the perception that it should not be innovated.  Though the ad campaign is a spoof, I wonder just how much the people at Post really believe this.  What if shredded wheat could be innovated to create new growth potential for this 116 year old product? 

Here is a brief history from Wikipedia:

Henry Perky invented shredded wheat cereal in 1893. The wheat is first cooked in water until its moisture content reaches about 50%. It is then tempered, allowing moisture to diffuse evenly into the grain. The grain then passes through a set of rollers with grooves in one side, yielding a web of shredded wheat strands. Many webs are stacked together, and this moist stack of strands is crimped at regular intervals to produce individual pieces of cereal with the strands attached at each end. These then go into an oven, where they are baked until their moisture content is reduced to 5%.

I'll use all five templates of the Systematic Inventive Thinking method to see what new opportunities we can uncover. 

Innovation Sighting: Task Unification at Airports

Placing advertisements on objects such as billboards and taxis is nothing new.  But here is a new twist using task unification.  It is one of five templates in the corporate innovation method called S.I.T.  Task Unification assigns an additional "job" to an existing resource.   Here is an example as reported in USA Today:

The LAB: Innovating a Surgical Mask with Task Unification (May 2009)

Crisis creates opportunity.  That certainly has been the case for surgical mask makers and retailers as people scramble to buy them to protect against the H1N1 swine flu virus.  Companies and governments are ordering masks by the case load.  The surgical mask has become the number four selling item in women's apparel at Amazon.com, moving ahead of another strapped item - the bra.  The rush to protect against the virus extends beyond surgical masks as people seek any form of protection.  Soon we will be tracking the pandemic on our iPhones.

Surgical masks have been around since 1860.  Since then, lots of innovation has occurred.  One of my favorites is shown here - a clear mask so that doctors and nurses can see each others' face to improve communications. The fashionable surgical mask idea has been around for a very long time, but it is back with a vengeance.

There is debate about the value of surgical masks in the operating room.  Experts question whether they protect people from viruses like swine flu.  At best, masks seem capable of short term protection from large particle droplets transmitted at close contact.  Masks prevent transmission both to and from the wearer.

Given the questionable efficacy of surgical masks, this would seem a ripe opportunity for PROBLEM-TO-SOLUTION innovation using a methods such as TRIZ and Goldfire.  For this LAB, I will use Systematic Inventive Thinking (SOLUTION-TO-PROBLEM innovation) to see if there are novel ideas to extend the value of the surgical mask and perhaps address some of the unmet needs as well.  For this exercise, I am using a 3M 8210 respirator version that is N95 rated.  We start by listing the components:

The LAB: Innovating a Garage Door Opener (March 2009)

Teaching people how to innovate is rewarding.  It empowers them.  It unlocks their minds to believe that innovation can happen "on command."   People realize there is no excuse for not having enough ideas or being innovative once they have been trained.

This month's LAB features the output of one of my students, Michael Sanders, in my class, "Applied Marketing Innovation."  For the final exam, students were assigned a product at random.  They had three hours to apply all five templates in the Systematic Inventive Thinking method to come up with true new-to-the-world innovations.  They were graded on how correctly they applied each template as well as the novelty of their inventions.  Michael's assignment:  Garage Door Opener.  Here is what he did.

The LAB: Innovating The Kindle with Task Unification (January 2009)

As we await the arrival of Amazon's Kindle 2.0, it is a perfect time to begin innovating their next generation device.  Anytime is a good time to innovate, but it is especially meaningful to innovate just as you launch your latest innovation.  It tells the world you are serious about creating a sustainable pipeline of new growth opportunities.

This month's LAB uses the Task Unification tool of Systematic Inventive Thinking to create new concepts for the Kindle.  The definition of Task Unification is: assigning an additional job to an existing resource.  The general idea is to break the current product down into components and then systematically give each component a new task or activity.  This creates an abstract "pre-inventive" form that we then take and discover potential benefits, target markets, and adaptations that would make the innovation very useful and unique.  This is what I call "Solution-To-Problem" innovation.

My goal is to come up with innovations that are not obvious or mere incremental changes in functionality of the current device.  If that is all we wanted, we could look at the iPhone or other electronic gizmo for ideas.  I don't own a Kindle (yet), so I will work from the Kindle User's Guide to make my component list. 

1. Screen Display
2. Control Buttons
3. Keyboard
4. Cursor bar
5. Select Wheel
6. Dictionary
7. Speaker
8. Wireless
9. Storage
10. Battery
11. Search (Software)
12. Music Player

As I try to do in all LAB sessions, I created the following innovations in about an hour:

1.  SCREEN:  Kindle makes reading easier.  It tracks how fast you read and adjusts the scrolling speed to a comfortable level.  The screen resolution adjusts to your eyeglass prescription to optimize readability (brightness, contrast, text size).

2.  SOFTWARE: Kindle helps you become a better reader.  It keeps track of how much you read, the level of difficulty, when you read, at what intervals, and at what speed.  It becomes a "reading trainer" by suggesting ways to improve your speed and comprehension based on your patterns.

3.  STORAGE:  Kindle is a book management system.  It keeps a complete inventory of all books you own or have access to, digital and physical.  It relates the material you are reading now in a newspaper article or blog to books that you own so that you are aware of the connection.  It flags you to view material in books you own as it may be relevant to what you are reading now.  It connects context.

4.  CONTROL BUTTONS:  Kindle controls other things in your home.  It becomes a universal remote to control room lights, stereo, and TV.

5.  WIRELESS:  Kindle is a social tool.  It connects you with others who have a Kindle.  It alerts them on what you are reading at that moment in Twitter-like fashion.  It connects members of a book club who are all reading the same book, and it allows members to bookmark and comment on parts of the book, all shared wirelessly or perhaps via Instant Messaging.  Kindle sends what you are reading to your Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, or blog so that others can see what you are reading...now.

6.  SPEAKER:  Kindle translates words and speech.  It has Text-to-Speech function so you can highlight a written passage and then hear it spoken in words over the speaker.

7.  WIRELESS:  Kindle enhances your imagination.  It integrates Google Maps with what you are reading so that you can visually see the location that is being discussed or described.

I can't wait for Kindle...3.0!

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.