Research Collection Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Readings in Innovation

Arcot Desai Narasimhalu et al. — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 18:55:47 PST

This is a collection of practice oriented papers that I had written from 2005 – 2010 and published in relevant conferences. The papers were written primarily to share my experiences as an innovator and an innovation manager over thirty five years of my professional life. They are a collection of frameworks, heuristic algorithms and processes that I have penned down from my experience. They are neither theories nor only options available to innovators and innovation managers. This is yet another offering in the world of “Innovation Buffet” that innovators could consume. The sole purpose in compiling these papers is to share my practice experience and resulting observations with a larger community. These papers do not attempt to discover or establish theories using social science research methodologies....Preface

Random Thoughts on Innovation

Arcot Desai Narasimhalu et al. — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 18:55:46 PST

....We had to bring about an organizational innovation by reengineering the organization itself!!! The late 1990s saw us redefine the mission of the organization to be user and market centric aiming to produce solutions with a 10X difference. We had to create a program that will allow promising technologies and solutions created by engineers and scientists who were passionate to see their works utilized by the world. This required transforming a quasi-academic publicly funded lab into an engine that would generate new businesses. The transformation was not easy. This was also about the time when the dot com bubble was building up. There was market pull for good talent. Venture capitalists where funding unproven and unviable ideas with irrational exuberance. We faced the danger of being hollowed out – an organization without the soul. Habits had to be changed, incentive schemes had to be restructured and relevant painful decisions had to be made. There was turbulence across the organization. Established managers felt that their power base was being eroded. Changes had to be made for the organization to survive the then challenges and march towards prosperous future....Preface

Innovation Rules : a Step by Step Approach Towards Identifying New Innovation Opportunities.

Arcot Desai Narasimhalu et al. — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:22:34 PST

This book is organized in three sections. The first section introduces twenty five innovation rules that reflect how innovations have progressed over time. The second section explains how the innovation rules can be used to identify possible innovation opportunities. The third section explains how to choose innovations for commercialization.

Pay sufficient attention to each of the Innovation Rules when you read the first section. Each rule captures the introduction and evolution of successful innovations. Each rule is listed on one page and its description on the opposite page. Rules have more than one stage, the initial stage followed by one or more additional stages. Description of a rule will list some examples for the rule. See whether you can identify other examples for the rule. Also, see whether you could use any of the rules for identifying new innovation opportunities. Think of a product in the market. See whether the product corresponds to any of the stages in the rule. If it does, then the next stage is a potential innovation opportunity.

Please read each section carefully multiple times so that you get to appreciate the value of the content. The materials in the second and third sections offer an approach to identifying innovation opportunities and deciding on which of the possible innovations ought to be commercialized. You are free to substitute the approaches in these two sections with alternatives that you consider to be better.

Use the ideas presented in this book freely and benefit from them both intellectually and materially. Go Innovate.-- Preface.