One Friday night recently, I was in downtown Evanston, my adopted hometown, enjoying the warm weather. The downtown area has blossomed in the past ten years, thanks in great part to our mayor, Ms. Lorraine Morton. Boarded up stores have become part of a thriving marketplace, empty restaurants are now filled to capacity. Mayor Morton pushed for development of stores and condo buildings when others were reluctant to go along.
On this particular night, I could see the results. Families, college students and senior citizens were strolling streets alive with bubbly conversation and music. For one brief moment, I thought that if I were to see the Mayor, I would complement her on how well the town is gracefully evolving into a vibrant city, a destination for a night on the town.
As I advanced closer to the music, I saw it was the Evanston High School marching band, playing on a street corner. After a few moments of enjoying the music I turned and walked away.
For no particular reason that I can recall, I looked at a row of people sitting in lawn chairs at the corner, gently swaying to the rhythm of the music.
Who was sitting in the chairs? Why the Mayor, her husband and a few of their friends. Of course, I stopped and chatted with her, complementing her on positive developments in the city. She was very gracious and seemed to appreciate the feedback.
As I continued my walk downtown, I marveled at the synchronicity of the moment - I had thought about the Mayor, and within a few moments, I actually had a chance to speak to her.
My lesson from this is that often times the thing we are seeking are often in front of us, we just need to be open to seeing it.
First a funny story. When I was in graduate school in Berkeley, a friend was defending his Master's thesis. At one point, a professor asked him a question that stumped him. What would you do?
He did something that one could get away with in California. He stopped, stared at the walls and said, "Is that an earthquake?" While everyone debated whether they had felt a tremor, he gathered his thoughts and soon he was ready to answer the question, which he answered correctly, by the way.
An innovative product under development brought that story to mind. Citizen Watch and Royal Watch companies are developing a new watch, the Earthquake Early Warning Watch. It functions as an ordinary analog watch until it receives a signal from Japan's Earthquake Early Watch system. Then it kicks into gear, literally. The hour hand speeds up to correlate to the estimated seismic intensity while the second hand functions as a countdown to the estimated arrival time based upon the watch-wearer's location. The watch can also emit an alarm or vibrate. Wow!
So let's analyze this from through the lens of innovation. First, the EEW watch was the product of a partnership between two Japanese companies, the well-known Citizens Watch and lesser-known Rhythm Watch Co. Secondly, the watch was not an entirely new product. In fact, it could be considered a retro product since it leverages what is considered by many to be outdated technology - hour and second watch hands. Yet, something new was added as well, a receiver that provides life-saving information.
Want to know where earthquakes are occurring right now, even without an EEW watch? Check out this link to see earthquakes detected in the last week.
A recent study by Booz Allen Hamilton, designated less than 10% its Global Innovation 1000 as 'high-leverage'. This title indicated that these companies got the most bang from money spent of innovation within their companies. These 94 companies led the pack in a wide set of measures.
Money alone, the researchers concluded, "can't buy innovation". The criteria included sales growth, growth margin percentage, growth margin growth, operating margin percentage, operating income growth, total shareholder returns and market capitalization growth over a five year period ending in 2005.
Although these high-leverage companies had a variety of approaches to integrating innovation into their processes, the distinguishing factor that led to their success was "a focus on building multi-functional, company-wide capabilities."
Additionally, although, these companies tended to be strongest in one of the four phases of innovation; ideation, project pruning, product development and product commercialization, they were adept at sheparding ideas through each step of the innovation value chain.
Three companies singled out as recognized industry leaders in innovation, Toyota, Apple, and Caterpillar, have "systematic ideation processes". Google was also noted for the furious pace at which products are shuttled from Google Labs to a debut as a Google Service.
The lesson learned from these companies? Strengthen any weak links in the innovation value chain so products can survive from ideation to the marketplace.
Welcome to Innovation Fascination, a blog focused on trends in innovation and sometimes, how it is being applied here at Allstate. To be sure, I'll also sprinkle in some observations on life along the way.
I do not claim to be an expert in Innovation, but I certainly am fascinated by it. I will share my observations, readings and conversations. Likewise, I hope you join in with your experiences and feedback.
