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FEATURED BOOK: Rethink: A Business Manifesto for Cutting Costs and Boosting Innovation


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Rethink: A Business Manifesto for Cutting Costs and Boosting Innovation

Author: Ric Merrifield
Price: $18.24

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Description: It’s the trap that ensnares virtually every business. We focus on process: “how” we’re doing the job. And we forget about the bigger issue: “what” we’re doing and “why” we’re doing it. That’s why we’re leaving so much value on the table. In Rethink, business architect Ric Merrifield exposes this problem with vivid examples and introduces breakthrough techniques for overcoming it.

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Managing for Innovation


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by Jeffrey Phillips

Managing for InnovationYou’ll note the title of the blog post – managing for innovation. Not “managing innovation” which is akin to “herding cats”. No, managing for innovation. In other words, setting out the environment, atmosphere and behaviors to inculcate innovation in the environment of the organization, rather than using a microscope and a magnifying glass on every activity to ensure that innovation is happening.

We “preach” managing for innovation to our clients. Yes, we do innovation projects, but a discrete innovation project is hopefully just the first step on a much larger journey – the journey that takes an organization from occasional innovation projects to committed innovation entity. What distinguishes a “once and done” innovation effort in an organization from an organization that is fully engaged and innovating all the time is the environment, the atmosphere, and the culture. And all of those factors are predicated on the management of the organization.

This is a long winded way of introducing our topic for today, which is the valuable arrival of the latest Nielsen study on innovation. You can read the synopsis on the Nielsen site. Frankly, I am late to comment on this. Others already have – see here and Paul Sloane’s article for example. What the Nielsen report indicates is that distance from the executive team fosters greater innovation capability. I’ll take issue with whether that “distance” has to be geographic distance, or if the distance can merely be that the executive team offers space for the team to work and freedom to investigate ideas. But what’s evident in the research is that a light touch managing an innovation effort is critical. In my thinking this means establishing the goals and developing the environment where innovation can flourish, and then allowing the work to progress relatively unimpeded, rather than constantly demanding updates and reports, and frequently shifting the emphasis of the effort.

In what is one of those “everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarden” moments, the synopsis states:

“One of the keys to successful new product innovation is to manage new ideas lightly,” said Agan. “While we don’t dispute senior management’s strengths and good intentions, they are often too quick to get involved in the creative process, especially when things are not going well, and their mere presence can stifle free-thinking and boundaryless ideas – which can doom the new product development process to failure.”

Well, here’s a Captain Obvious moment. We need innovation programs that have the freedom to follow the logical paths where the ideas will lead, rather than constantly evaluating, compromising and conditioning the ideas to our current realities. And since most managers need new products and services yesterday and want to deliver them in the next quarter, they can be excused (but not forgiven) for trying to shoehorn new ideas into solutions they can deliver tomorrow, rather than allowing the ideas to play out.

Next, the study suggests that rather than managing ideas, executives should pay more attention to the process. Yes! Finally, we are beginning to understand that the PROCESS is far more important than any idea within the process. The PROCESS can be sustainable, while any idea moving through the process has only a small chance of success. What’s odd about this disparity is that in most instances executives are comfortable managing the processes and don’t get too involved with the projects and initiatives within the process, as long as the process is within some tolerance level. In innovation programs, there’s little investment given or attention paid to the process, and all focus on the ideas. We get innovation exactly backward, contrary to the way we run the rest of our businesses.

There’s a good reason for this – innovation involves doing something new, different and risky, so we believe that every idea is sacred, every idea is immensely valuable and should be nurtured and coddled. No, ideas are COMMODITIES – it’s the process that matters, not the ideas. And, what’s also nice, is that an innovation process can be incubated and tailored to an organization’s focus or culture. Apple’s innovation process is really different from Google’s, which is really different from P&G’s, but they all have defined processes and those firms reinforce the processes effectively and build cultures, atmospheres and behaviors that encourage idea generation.

For those of us who “do” innovation frequently, the Nielsen study isn’t an “ah ha” report. It is a statement of the obvious. For those of you who hope to do innovation well, please consider it not an outlier, but the gospel truth – manage the processes distinctly and create the atmosphere or cultural tolerance for ideas and innovation. As the report says – manage ideas lightly and the process precisely.

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Jeffrey PhillipsJeffrey Phillips is a senior leader at OVO Innovation. OVO works with large distributed organizations to build innovation teams, processes and capabilities. Jeffrey is the author of “Make us more Innovative”, and innovateonpurpose.blogspot.com.

Teetering on the Edge of Innovation


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by Kathie Thomas

Teetering on the Edge of InnovationAccording to NYTimes.com, “the competitive edge of the United States economy has eroded sharply over the last decade …”

According to a number of recent studies about global innovation and competitiveness, this appears to be true. While great for the rest of the world, the United States desperately needs to differentiate and seek relevance in the global arena.

“The United States is not the runaway leader in global competitiveness that some believe it to be.” Out of the 40 countries ITIF studied, the United States had made the least amount of progress in “improvement in international competitiveness and innovation capacity over the last decade.”

– The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation’s (ITIF) February 2009 study, “The Atlantic Century: Benchmarking EU & U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness

“In today’s global economy, the need to stay one step ahead of the competition is even more urgent – especially for industries in the United States. The emergence of challenges from rapidly developing economies such as India, China, Brazil and Eastern Europe has transformed the playing field.”

– The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), The Manufacturing Institute and the National Manufacturing Association (NAM), March 2009 study “The Innovation Imperative in Manufacturing: How the United States can Restore its Edge

“Although many people assume that the United States will always be a world leader in science and technology, this may not continue to be the case inasmuch as great minds and ideas exist throughout the world.”

– National Academies’ Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century in 2007 report, “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future

Luckily, for the United States, but not so much for the rest of the world, these studies all propose recommendations for the U.S. government to boost innovation activities. Over the next few days, I will summarize their recommendations and explain why I think they’re important to U.S. competitiveness:

  1. Strengthen the workforce by improving education and welcoming highly skilled immigrants.
  2. Incent innovation with funding, tax credits, and intellectual property protection.
  3. Support institutions, such as universities and research laboratories, that are necessary for innovation. Make government labs more accessible.

According to the three aforementioned studies, government actions in these areas will, as the National Academies report said, “ensure that the United Sates is the premier place in the world for innovation.”

Do you think the United States is falling behind the rest of the world in innovation? What should it do to retain its edge?

Don’t miss an article – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!


Kathie ThomasKathie Thomas is the Director of Innovation and a senior partner at Fleishman-Hillard. The global Innovation practice group Kathie leads offers proven tools and approaches for helping organizations and teams inject a new level of innovation and productivity into their strategic planning and program development.

Eat More Innovation


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Are you willing to crawl through the mud for innovation?

by Holly G. Green

Eat More InnovationHave you seen the new HBO made-for-TV movie called “Temple Grandin?”

It’s a powerful story about a woman, Temple Grandin, who overcame autism to become one of the most influential figures in today’s livestock and animal husbandry industry. Not only is Temple’s story a testament to the ability of the human spirit to overcome tremendous obstacles, it teaches many principles that all business leaders would do well to embrace.

When diagnosed at a very early age, doctors said Grandin would never speak. When they recommended life-long institutionalization, Grandin’s mother refused to accept that possibility, and continually pushed her daughter to develop her abilities and learn to work around her autistic limitations.

With the support of her mother and several key mentors along the way, Grandin went on to graduate from college and earn a Ph.D. in animal science. More important, she revolutionized the livestock industry by designing innovative systems that improve herd management and facilitate more humane treatment of the animals we depend on for food. (Lesson #1: Don’t let others tell you what you can and can’t do!)

In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that Grandin designed for meat plants. Her innovative curved chute and race systems for cattle are used worldwide, and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many companies to reduce stress on their animals during handling. Grandin also developed an objective scoring system for assessing handling of cattle and pigs at meat plants that is currently used by many large corporations to improve animal welfare.

At first, livestock companies balked at implementing Grandin’s designs due to the high cost. But when they saw how much money they could save through lower manpower costs, fewer deaths and injuries to cattle, and more efficient slaughterhouse systems, implementing the designs became an easy choice. (Lesson #2: True innovation is always cost-effective.)

Here’s the most important lesson of all: Grandin was able to come up with her revolutionary designs because she saw the world differently than anyone else in the industry.

Because of her autism, Grandin could see patterns in livestock movement and behaviors that others couldn’t. She studied how the cattle responded to all the different aspects of the stockyard/slaughterhouse process. She listened to their mooing to determine how they communicated with each other. She got down on her hands and knees in the mud and the muck to see what the cattle saw as they moved through the chutes. In other words, she literally got inside the cows’ world to understand what the stockyard experience was like for them and how she could make it better. (Lesson #3: Get an understanding of your customers and other stakeholders as much as you possibly can.)

As with many real breakthroughs, people initially scoffed at her. Just an autistic woman with a tenuous grip on reality. Plus, the industry was dominated by men and their “good old boy” notions about how to process cattle. But once they began testing Grandin’s designs, they quickly realized how much more efficiently and humanely they moved cattle through the system.

Unless you suffer from autism, you probably don’t have Grandin’s innate ability to see the world differently. And I’m not suggesting you get down on your hands and knees and crawl around in the mud and the muck to make your business better. (Unless that’s part of your business process.) But the principles are the same.

Innovation involves looking at your world and the world of your customers in ways that no one else has seen before. It requires constantly questioning the way things have always been done in your industry. And it requires asking on a regular basis, “How can we do things cheaper, faster, better, or different in order to add more value to our market?”

If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Grandin found a way to turn her biggest liability into her greatest strength. And in her triumph, there are lessons for all of us who lead people and organizations. How can we learn to see our world, and the world of our customers, differently? And, how can we turn our own weaknesses into strengths?

Don’t miss an article – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!


Holly G GreenHolly is the CEO of THE HUMAN FACTOR, Inc. (www.TheHumanFactor.biz) and is a highly sought after and acclaimed speaker, business consultant, and author. Her unique approach to creating strategic agility, helping others go slow to go fast, will change your thinking.

Eat More Innovation


Overall RatingNo Ratings

Are you willing to crawl through the mud for innovation?

by Holly G. Green

Eat More InnovationHave you seen the new HBO made-for-TV movie called “Temple Grandin?”

It’s a powerful story about a woman, Temple Grandin, who overcame autism to become one of the most influential figures in today’s livestock and animal husbandry industry. Not only is Temple’s story a testament to the ability of the human spirit to overcome tremendous obstacles, it teaches many principles that all business leaders would do well to embrace.

When diagnosed at a very early age, doctors said Grandin would never speak. When they recommended life-long institutionalization, Grandin’s mother refused to accept that possibility, and continually pushed her daughter to develop her abilities and learn to work around her autistic limitations.

With the support of her mother and several key mentors along the way, Grandin went on to graduate from college and earn a Ph.D. in animal science. More important, she revolutionized the livestock industry by designing innovative systems that improve herd management and facilitate more humane treatment of the animals we depend on for food. (Lesson #1: Don’t let others tell you what you can and can’t do!)

In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that Grandin designed for meat plants. Her innovative curved chute and race systems for cattle are used worldwide, and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many companies to reduce stress on their animals during handling. Grandin also developed an objective scoring system for assessing handling of cattle and pigs at meat plants that is currently used by many large corporations to improve animal welfare.

At first, livestock companies balked at implementing Grandin’s designs due to the high cost. But when they saw how much money they could save through lower manpower costs, fewer deaths and injuries to cattle, and more efficient slaughterhouse systems, implementing the designs became an easy choice. (Lesson #2: True innovation is always cost-effective.)

Here’s the most important lesson of all: Grandin was able to come up with her revolutionary designs because she saw the world differently than anyone else in the industry.

Because of her autism, Grandin could see patterns in livestock movement and behaviors that others couldn’t. She studied how the cattle responded to all the different aspects of the stockyard/slaughterhouse process. She listened to their mooing to determine how they communicated with each other. She got down on her hands and knees in the mud and the muck to see what the cattle saw as they moved through the chutes. In other words, she literally got inside the cows’ world to understand what the stockyard experience was like for them and how she could make it better. (Lesson #3: Get an understanding of your customers and other stakeholders as much as you possibly can.)

As with many real breakthroughs, people initially scoffed at her. Just an autistic woman with a tenuous grip on reality. Plus, the industry was dominated by men and their “good old boy” notions about how to process cattle. But once they began testing Grandin’s designs, they quickly realized how much more efficiently and humanely they moved cattle through the system.

Unless you suffer from autism, you probably don’t have Grandin’s innate ability to see the world differently. And I’m not suggesting you get down on your hands and knees and crawl around in the mud and the muck to make your business better. (Unless that’s part of your business process.) But the principles are the same.

Innovation involves looking at your world and the world of your customers in ways that no one else has seen before. It requires constantly questioning the way things have always been done in your industry. And it requires asking on a regular basis, “How can we do things cheaper, faster, better, or different in order to add more value to our market?”

If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Grandin found a way to turn her biggest liability into her greatest strength. And in her triumph, there are lessons for all of us who lead people and organizations. How can we learn to see our world, and the world of our customers, differently? And, how can we turn our own weaknesses into strengths?

Don’t miss an article – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!


Holly G GreenHolly is the CEO of THE HUMAN FACTOR, Inc. (www.TheHumanFactor.biz) and is a highly sought after and acclaimed speaker, business consultant, and author. Her unique approach to creating strategic agility, helping others go slow to go fast, will change your thinking.

Peter Drucker on Innovation


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by Roy Luebke

Peter Drucker on InnovationMany people struggle with trying to define innovation, or what innovation is within an organization. I’ve recently been re-reading one of the best business books I have, “The Essential Drucker. The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Writings on Management” which is a compendium of his writings.

Drucker wrote that purposeful innovation results from analysis, systemic review and hard work and can be taught, replicated and learned.

Purposeful, systemic innovation begins with the analysis of opportunities. The search must be organized and conducted on a regular basis. It seems that we may be getting hung up on “the fuzzy front end” and other views that make innovation seem really obscure. Drucker identified seven sources of opportunity that will ultimately drive innovation:

  1. The organization’s own unexpected successes and failures, and also those of the competition.
  2. Incongruities, especially those in a process, such as production, distribution, or incongruities in customer behavior.
  3. Process needs.
  4. Changes in industry and market structures.
  5. Changes in demographics.
  6. Changes in meaning and perception.
  7. New knowledge.

Innovation is both conceptual and perceptual. The imperative is to go out to look, to ask, to listen. Successful innovators use both the left and right side of their brains. They look at figures and they look at people.

To be successful, Drucker wrote that an innovation has to be simple and it has to be focused. It should only do one thing or it confuses people and won’t work. All effective innovations are breathtakingly simple. It should focus on a specific need that is satisfied and on a specific end result that it produces. This makes innovation seem pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?

Drucker indicated that effective innovations start small and they should not try to be clever. Innovations try to do one specific thing. Starting small allows for adjustments. Starting small keeps the requirements for people and money to be fairly modest. Innovations must be handled by ordinary human beings, and if they are to achieve any size and importance at all, by morons or near morons (his words, not this author’s!).

Another key factor was to not try to innovate for the future, but innovate for the present. The innovation may have long term impact, but if you can’t get it adopted now there won’t be any future.

According to Drucker, there are three conditions that must be met for an innovation to be successful including:

  1. Innovation is work. It requires knowledge, ingenuity, creativity, etc. Plus, innovators rarely work in more than one area, be it finance, healthcare, retail or whatever. This work requires diligence, perseverance and commitment.
  2. To succeed, innovators must build on their own strengths. They must look at opportunities over a wide range, then ask which of the opportunities fits me, fits this company. There must be a temperamental fit with the practitioner and a link to business strategy.
  3. Innovation is an effect in economy and society, a change in the behavior of customers, of teachers, of farmers, of doctors, of people in general. Or, it is a change in a process, in how people work and produce something. Innovation must always be close to the market, focused on the market, and market driven.

Drucker wrote that innovation by its nature is risky, as is all economic activity. But defending what was done yesterday is far more risky than making tomorrow.

Innovators define risks and seek to minimize them. Innovations are successful to the extent that they systematically analyze the sources of opportunity, pinpoint the opportunity, and then exploit it, whether an opportunity has small and definable risk, or larger but still definable risk. Successful innovators are conservative, they are not risk-focused, but rather are opportunity-focused.

While many articles, white papers and books have been written lately about innovation, Peter Drucker seems to have nailed it decades ago.

Don’t miss an article – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!


Roy LuebkeRoy Luebke is an innovation expert focused on discovering new, customer-driven opportunity areas to help define the future of a company. He is inspired by knowledge and learning, and applying structured tools and methods at the crossroads of strategy and innovation to achieve business growth.

Peter Drucker on Innovation


Overall RatingNo Ratings

by Roy Luebke

Peter Drucker on InnovationMany people struggle with trying to define innovation, or what innovation is within an organization. I’ve recently been re-reading one of the best business books I have, “The Essential Drucker. The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Writings on Management” which is a compendium of his writings.

Drucker wrote that purposeful innovation results from analysis, systemic review and hard work and can be taught, replicated and learned.

Purposeful, systemic innovation begins with the analysis of opportunities. The search must be organized and conducted on a regular basis. It seems that we may be getting hung up on “the fuzzy front end” and other views that make innovation seem really obscure. Drucker identified seven sources of opportunity that will ultimately drive innovation:

  1. The organization’s own unexpected successes and failures, and also those of the competition.
  2. Incongruities, especially those in a process, such as production, distribution, or incongruities in customer behavior.
  3. Process needs.
  4. Changes in industry and market structures.
  5. Changes in demographics.
  6. Changes in meaning and perception.
  7. New knowledge.

Innovation is both conceptual and perceptual. The imperative is to go out to look, to ask, to listen. Successful innovators use both the left and right side of their brains. They look at figures and they look at people.

To be successful, Drucker wrote that an innovation has to be simple and it has to be focused. It should only do one thing or it confuses people and won’t work. All effective innovations are breathtakingly simple. It should focus on a specific need that is satisfied and on a specific end result that it produces. This makes innovation seem pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?

Drucker indicated that effective innovations start small and they should not try to be clever. Innovations try to do one specific thing. Starting small allows for adjustments. Starting small keeps the requirements for people and money to be fairly modest. Innovations must be handled by ordinary human beings, and if they are to achieve any size and importance at all, by morons or near morons (his words, not this author’s!).

Another key factor was to not try to innovate for the future, but innovate for the present. The innovation may have long term impact, but if you can’t get it adopted now there won’t be any future.

According to Drucker, there are three conditions that must be met for an innovation to be successful including:

  1. Innovation is work. It requires knowledge, ingenuity, creativity, etc. Plus, innovators rarely work in more than one area, be it finance, healthcare, retail or whatever. This work requires diligence, perseverance and commitment.
  2. To succeed, innovators must build on their own strengths. They must look at opportunities over a wide range, then ask which of the opportunities fits me, fits this company. There must be a temperamental fit with the practitioner and a link to business strategy.
  3. Innovation is an effect in economy and society, a change in the behavior of customers, of teachers, of farmers, of doctors, of people in general. Or, it is a change in a process, in how people work and produce something. Innovation must always be close to the market, focused on the market, and market driven.

Drucker wrote that innovation by its nature is risky, as is all economic activity. But defending what was done yesterday is far more risky than making tomorrow.

Innovators define risks and seek to minimize them. Innovations are successful to the extent that they systematically analyze the sources of opportunity, pinpoint the opportunity, and then exploit it, whether an opportunity has small and definable risk, or larger but still definable risk. Successful innovators are conservative, they are not risk-focused, but rather are opportunity-focused.

While many articles, white papers and books have been written lately about innovation, Peter Drucker seems to have nailed it decades ago.

Don’t miss an article – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!


Roy LuebkeRoy Luebke is an innovation expert focused on discovering new, customer-driven opportunity areas to help define the future of a company. He is inspired by knowledge and learning, and applying structured tools and methods at the crossroads of strategy and innovation to achieve business growth.

Innovation by Observation


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The Rise of the Biomimetist

by Yann Cramer

Innovation by ObservationOne of IDEO’s ten faces of innovation is the anthropologist: the one who observes human behaviors and actions to discover wasted effort that could be turned into an innovation challenge. In the past decade, an eleven’s face has been quietly but steadily rising to prominence in the innovation team: the biomimetist, who observes animal and plant characteristics to discover supreme efficiency that could be turned into an innovation breakthrough.

The kingfisher’s beak isn’t just a fashionable accessory that the bird has picked on the shelves of supermarket nature. It is the result of millions of years of evolution and natural selection. The biomimetist starts from the humble assumption that, even if it is not obvious at first, there may be a good reason why nature has designed animal and plants as we see them. The kingfisher’s beak turns out to be supremely efficient at crossing the air-water interface with the minimum amount of turbulence, thus making the bird more successful at catching fish by surprise.

It was the source of inspiration for the design of the Shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train. Obviously the train does not dive into water, but it has many tunnels to pass through. Tunnels tend to create an air-air interface between the inside and the outside, which, when crossed, generates turbulence and noise. The efficiency of the design has enables engineers to create a train that is the most silent of its kind.

Likewise, attentive and questioning observation of the lotus leaf inspired glass manufacturer Saint-Gobain. How does the lotus leaf manage to remain clean in a muddy environment? Electronic microscope observation of the surface of the leaf revealed a hydrophobic nano-structure on which mud does not stick. It then lets the lotus maximize its exposure to sunlight for photosynthesis.

This surface structure that enables the plant to yield maximum benefits from natural resources, namely the sun and the rain, became the inspiration for Saint-Gobain’s design of a self-cleaning glass. The company designed a hydrophobic surface structure on which dirt that is decomposed by sunlight is washed away by the rain.

Observing nature, humbly, questioningly, letting it fill us with wonder, can be a fantastic source of inspiration. Not only for its beauty, but also its efficiency.

Don’t miss an article – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!


Yann Cramer is an innovation learner, practitioner, sharer, teacher. He’s lived in France, Belgium and the UK, he’s travelled six continents to create development opportunities with customers or suppliers, and run workshops on R&D and Marketing. He writes on www.innovToday.com and on twitter @innovToday.

Innovation by Observation


Overall RatingNo Ratings

The Rise of the Biomimetist

by Yann Cramer

Innovation by ObservationOne of IDEO’s ten faces of innovation is the anthropologist: the one who observes human behaviors and actions to discover wasted effort that could be turned into an innovation challenge. In the past decade, an eleven’s face has been quietly but steadily rising to prominence in the innovation team: the biomimetist, who observes animal and plant characteristics to discover supreme efficiency that could be turned into an innovation breakthrough.

The kingfisher’s beak isn’t just a fashionable accessory that the bird has picked on the shelves of supermarket nature. It is the result of millions of years of evolution and natural selection. The biomimetist starts from the humble assumption that, even if it is not obvious at first, there may be a good reason why nature has designed animal and plants as we see them. The kingfisher’s beak turns out to be supremely efficient at crossing the air-water interface with the minimum amount of turbulence, thus making the bird more successful at catching fish by surprise.

It was the source of inspiration for the design of the Shinkansen, the Japanese bullet train. Obviously the train does not dive into water, but it has many tunnels to pass through. Tunnels tend to create an air-air interface between the inside and the outside, which, when crossed, generates turbulence and noise. The efficiency of the design has enables engineers to create a train that is the most silent of its kind.

Likewise, attentive and questioning observation of the lotus leaf inspired glass manufacturer Saint-Gobain. How does the lotus leaf manage to remain clean in a muddy environment? Electronic microscope observation of the surface of the leaf revealed a hydrophobic nano-structure on which mud does not stick. It then lets the lotus maximize its exposure to sunlight for photosynthesis.

This surface structure that enables the plant to yield maximum benefits from natural resources, namely the sun and the rain, became the inspiration for Saint-Gobain’s design of a self-cleaning glass. The company designed a hydrophobic surface structure on which dirt that is decomposed by sunlight is washed away by the rain.

Observing nature, humbly, questioningly, letting it fill us with wonder, can be a fantastic source of inspiration. Not only for its beauty, but also its efficiency.

Don’t miss an article – Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!


Yann Cramer is an innovation learner, practitioner, sharer, teacher. He’s lived in France, Belgium and the UK, he’s travelled six continents to create development opportunities with customers or suppliers, and run workshops on R&D and Marketing. He writes on www.innovToday.com and on twitter @innovToday.