Molecules | Paul4innovating Innovation Views

Managing Energy Transition through Innovation

In the past few months, I have been placing an increasing focus on the energy transition we all need to undertake in our energy systems, to build a more comprehensive understanding of the parts that make up the whole of this transition.

It is one of the most critical places where innovation application is required and able to be conducted to deliver a sustaining impact in our world. Innovation solutions will provide the energy transition needed, and that is what makes it such a compelling area to focus upon.

For me, the energy transition that the world is undertaking requires all forms of innovation, to offer technically advanced, as well as breakthrough solutions, to an incredibly complex system of energy delivery. To redesign a complete energy system in twenty to thirty years, which is the current time frame being wanted to be achieved, is as demanding as you can get. I certainly want to play a role in this transformation, it is exciting, challenging, and demanding on all involved.

We need to appreciate the magnitude of the innovation challenges Continue reading “Managing Energy Transition through Innovation”

Recognizing an innovation need

Increasingly I am noticing that Organizations are facing the increasing dilemma of how to organize and manage within their present systems and structures their innovation activities.

Innovation is becoming far too complex for the innovation process installed within the (one) organization. It is far too self-contained and not open to the collaborative environment we need today, where others outside the one organization can freely exchange and collaborate on the same platform.

I have argued for some time we do not have an “innovation fit-for-purpose” system, we still are focusing far too much on having separate solutions for the front end (IP discovery), then idea generation, and then keep separately the pipeline and portfolio management. We are still randomly applying a range of tools that individuals have collected for themselves to complete their part of the job and the outputs can’t be shared. We continue to exchange across different social channels, often seen as a necessary evil to be bridged, as often systems do not “speak” to each other.

We fail to connect up all of our innovation process and design. When will we have a fully integrated, end-to-end innovation system? Some software solution providers seem to be working towards it but tend to keep adding pieces and not stepping back and designing a fully integrated process. Why? We are managing innovation at often very sub-optimal levels of effectiveness. Continue reading “Recognizing an innovation need”

Your Future Lies in Occupying the Innovation Job and Using the Skills it Provides

Source: World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2018. for future skills

We all need to begin to grapple with what is redefining work in knowledge, skills, our experience, and our necessary abilities to be viable and useful

We continue to hear and begin to see the effects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It continues to impact skills, tasks, and jobs.

The implications are a growing concern that both job displacement and talent shortages will impact business dynamism and societal cohesion. It is the pervasive power of technology integration that will change the business models of all industries.

Yet we are recognizing it will also giving rise to a number of emerging jobs yet to be identified or formulized to be trained in. A proactive and strategic effort is needed but based on what? We need to manage reskilling and upskilling to mitigate against both job losses and talent shortages but prepared the future workforce to be more nimble, agile and fluid. Here is where innovators are going to be well-positioned.

Working within the innovation space will be one of the best launching pads for being more comfortable for the future of work. Let me explain why Continue reading “Your Future Lies in Occupying the Innovation Job and Using the Skills it Provides”

Recognizing it is all about Value Creation

I am reading a lot about the concept of value creation recently, it answers everything but tells us so often nothing about how it is made up or it is truly present. It seems to have that same ‘heady vaulted position’ as innovation in that we all talk far more about the ‘promise’ of it, we want it but still are not prepared to put the real effort into it to make it happen.

So let me try and explain my thoughts on value creation. So what is behind value creation? What drives it? What will tell us this is an organization where value creation seems to well invest in, nurtured, built and protected?

So what is value creation?

Value creation is highly dynamic, it is going on all the time and can increase, decrease or transform, in different ways, when you exploit your different capitals that will be in constant change and adjusting to reflect your organization’s business activities and eventual outputs. This is when you can begin to see the value created by the use of deploying all the capitals to build new growth and what I call “stock” that along with “flow”. I loved this explaination of the two.

Continue reading “Recognizing it is all about Value Creation”

Nesta’s Landscape of Innovation Approaches

You sometimes need to kick yourself. Well in my case that seems to be increasing by the day. I have to confess I have drifted in and out of checking on Nesta, based in the UK. Different reasons, different focus areas partly although innovation keeps us together, well me checking in on them, I’m not so sure it is the same their end.

Nesta is an innovation foundation. They state: “For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality. It also means changing lives for the better. This is what keeps us awake at night and gets us out of bed in the morning” They work in areas where there are big challenges facing society, from the frontiers of personalized healthcare to stretched public services and a fast-changing jobs market. They cover a lot of ground and provide some very sound advice along the way.

One of their team, Bas Leurs, who is their head of learning experience design, has been working on “A Landscape of Innovation Approaches“. I read version one in February 2018 and did not pick up on version 2, published as a blog in December 2018. Hence, why I kicked myself. Continue reading “Nesta’s Landscape of Innovation Approaches”

So CX + DX needs IX for the transformations we need

We are on the brink of a transformation, a global one that connects us into information, knowledge, and insights in ever-powerful ways. thanks to the digital internet. We are also exploring the use of Artifical Intelligence (AI) more than ever.

BCG suggests that nine out of ten companies in their recent survey for the report “The Most Innovative Companies 2019” are investing in AI. BCG also suggests that 30% of those surveyed believe AI will have the greatest impact of any innovation area on their industry over the next three to five years.

We are also seeing the emergence of platforms and ecosystems radically changing how we collaborate and invent, design, solve issues from a changing shift in cooperation understanding. Platforms are fueling new business initiatives as they learn to engage across the whole value chain spectrum, from customer to delivering back the needs of that customer.

It is our technology being applied through new approaches that are galvanizing the new potential within innovation.

As we learn to orchestrate the underlying technologies, learn to build helpful applications, establish these software platforms this is beginning to become attractive as a new place for integrating, exchanging and collaborating. There is the talk of “the network effect” (Metcalfe’s Law) whereas more participants engage on platforms or in ecosystems and exchange, the more the value goes up and the community participating gets increasingly more out of the value of the “combined” thinking, data and insights. It has huge potential to generate new levels of innovation, ones that are more connected, more seamless and more what the customer wants.

So we come to CX + DX, it needs IX

Continue reading “So CX + DX needs IX for the transformations we need”

Finally a framework to manage holistically Industrial Revolution 4.0

Introducing the Smart Industry Readiness Index Prioritization Matrix

I was really pleased to watch the official launch of the Smart Industry Readiness Index (SIRI) with its addition of the Prioritization Matrix at Hannover Messe on Monday 1^st April 2019.

This will become a very useful and relevant management planning tool to help manufacturers worldwide to determine and prioritize their necessary areas of focus with all the digital initiatives, based on an Industry 4.0 Maturity and their current performance.

This tool or readiness prioritization index has a real potential to finally bring organizational wide awareness and common language identification. It can help implementation in a number of significant ways.

This has been pioneered by The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), a very formidable Government entity within the development of Singapore over the years, and in consultation and growing support, from McKinsey & Co, SAP, Siemens, and TüV SüD.

The framework is a very systematic and I feel, a robust way, to focus on what matters to you in your own Industrial Revolution 4.0 journey (IR4). So often organizations do not have a clear vision, strategy or can develop a systematic roadmap for this form of transformation. It becomes overwhelming and a real challenge of where to start. Often the more you read, seek advice, the more you get confused. Continue reading “Finally a framework to manage holistically Industrial Revolution 4.0”

We Require A Shift of Innovation Management Solution Providers

There is still a real reluctance that the supplier of innovation software solutions has to change. They have had a model of a constant growth success for years, yet it is getting harder, as the market is fragmenting and looking for greater flexibility within the range of solutions on offer.

I think with the recognition that innovation occurs across the whole organization the innovation management (IM) providers have to radically alter their business model or recognize they need to broaden out their target market inside organizations.

Innovation is occurring in all corners of the organization today. Secondly, if open innovation has gone way beyond a one to many relationships into a many-to-many then does the reliance on single entity software provision makes sense, focusing on single point of entry into companies? No, we have to think total enterprise software for our innovation management solutions.

Far too much IM solution providers think their models, components, upgrades and yearly showcase upgrades, as the big event. No question any “staged” release is welcomed by clients as they either have been asking for it for long enough, or have been finding their own ways of completing “workarounds” to overcome gaps, then updates are always welcome, as long as they are relevant, not just cosmetic changes. So often client solutions and their needs have considerable lag. Continue reading “We Require A Shift of Innovation Management Solution Providers”

Building the Single Innovation Digital Platform Environment

Aras PLM Platform Image courtesy of Aras

Throughout the past couple of years, I have been constantly arguing about the need to put innovation management on a digital platform.

These have come in different thoughts on digital platforms, ready for cross-industry and having in place, a rapid digital innovation process that scales and evolves on new technology and insights.

We need a radical design, universal in design and approach.

What if you could manage your innovation in the ways shown in this diagram?

This is the way PLM innovation platforms are progressing and currently being assessed by CIMdata in a PLM Innovation Assessment Scorecard shown further below. Link to the position paper

The argument about what any innovation management system provides goes on and on and still, we seem not to be at the universal acceptance point that an innovation management process is critical and needs a better system of management.

What we should finally accept, a platform connects all users, both internally and externally in their ability to share their knowledge and information in exchanges, in one environment to cultivate collaborations and continuous collaborative creativity. The more we design and need to deliver smart, connected and innovative products the more we have this innovation platform need.

The majority of the present software providers fail to grasp this. Continue reading “Building the Single Innovation Digital Platform Environment”

Entering 2019 – What Do Each of Us Need to Focus Upon?

As we enter 2019 I always like to take a day or so, to reflect and think about what I should be focusing upon in the next year, around innovation. What has influenced me in 2018 and what I feel is shaping my thinking going into 2019?

I can honestly say, it never fully works out as the year progresses, there are distractions, subjects that attract my eye, hold my attention or simply ones become bigger in my wish to pursue as important to understand or become more focused upon.

Innovation is constantly shifting in customer needs and issues to absorb, relate too, build into our thinking, in a world where many within the business community are “time-starved, often knowledge poor” I look to help them on different innovation insights.

What about you? Here are my thoughts coming from 2018 that are leading me into 2019

Firstly in the year just closing I have been taking a look back at what I wrote about in 2018.Digital and innovation dominate.

On this site paul4innovating, I wrote 34 posts, a drop on past years, but increasingly with the shift into the constant integrating of digital into all things innovation, continuing as the emerging trend and theme, I seemed to spend the most time upon. On my other main site focusing specifically on ecosystems and platform related work, I wrote 25 posts.

Also in this year I began to put some fresh life on two new posting sites, one focusing specifically on coaching and mentoring “guide4innovating” and the other “connecting digital and innovation” looking more at the critical part of digital and innovation that is forming most of my posting and researching work in recent months to break it out. My one other continues a very tortuous journey of building the dynamics when linked, become the connecting points in building innovation in the needed capacity, capability, and competence, that I term the pursuit of “innovation fitness dynamics“

Why do I run so many posting sites? Continue reading “Entering 2019 – What Do Each of Us Need to Focus Upon?”