Posted by: Michael Arndt on November 11
Nearly two years after the U.S. tumbled into a recession, business is starting to think about ways to grow again. And for many, this means spending more money on innovation, says a new study from Accenture. In a survey of 630 execs in the U.S. and the U.K., 48% said their companies had upped their innovation budgets from six months ago. A third said innovation outlays were flat.
There's a gray lining in these numbers: One in every five companies is still cutting spending on the development of new products or services.
And there are other findings that suggest that companies really haven't kicked their recession habits. While new products or services have the biggest potential to generate sales and profit, 74% of the respondents told Accenture that their companies were pursuing incremental advances, like line extensions. (How many varieties of Coca-Cola will we really drink?) Along the same lines, 66% said their companies were more interested in short-term gains than long-term ones. (Same question.)
In the U.S., at least, companies may not be getting better at innovation, either. Accenture said 73% of American respondents said their employers didn't learn from mistakes. (In the U.K., only 30% were such slow learners.) Respondents blamed failed innovation mostly on inability to meet customer needs, being late to market, and incorrect pricing.
What's going on at your companies? Are you seeing any lift in innovation allocations?
Posted by: Venessa Wong on November 10
BusinessWeek published a list of design programs to watch as part of a special report on design thinking. I recently followed up with representatives to see how these new and upcoming master’s programs are developing.
In reponse to reader inquiries, I called RISD, which was not on our list, to see if any graduate-level programs were in the works. A spokesperson confirmed that while RISD offers its students opportunities to work on industry sponsored projects, at this point it does not have any formalized master's programs marrying design and business, or any partnerships with business schools. Still, the president, John Maeda, stresses the importance of intuition, design, emotion, and art in innovation. We'll watch for news.
Here is a rundown of the nine other programs.
Continue reading "New design programs emerging worldwide"
Posted by: Helen Walters on November 07
If you haven't watched Annie Leonard's film, The Story of Stuff, you really should. Seven million people have watched the 20-minute film since it was launched in December 2007, captivated by Leonard's breakneck-paced, fact-filled look at the story of modern consumption.
I'm in Los Angeles, at the Opportunity Green conference, this weekend, and Leonard was a featured speaker this afternoon. Along with her co-presenter, Jonah Sachs of Free Range Studios, she was a real highlight. And what I loved most about her presentation was her matter-of-fact analysis of where she'd gone wrong in the past.
Having spent 20 years investigating environmental health and justice issues around the world, she said, she was super confident that she had figured out the issues and problems. Yet for some reason, others didn't seem to share her enthusiastic concern. After taking a program at the Rockwood Leadership Institute, she was confronted with the fact that not only was she 20 years ahead of everyone else, she was so charmed by the cogent argument of her own intellectual ideas she had forgotten to engage an audience that had no idea what she was on about.
"I had been standing there wondering why people were not excited about the idea of a paradigm shift in our relationship to materials," she described. "I was too much in my head. And I needed to move to my heart."
So that's what she did with The Story of Stuff, which tackles her topic (issues with materials) in a way that an audience of laypeople can understand. Importantly, it's not about dumbing down or over-simplifying, but of speaking in a language to which people can relate. "If you’re trying to connect with people, a super intellectual brain-dump is not what’s needed," she said. "A connection with people is what’s needed."
Two years after it was released, the film is still watched by some 10,000 people every day. And Leonard has become a folk hero of sustainability. Next year, a book version of the film will be published. "I don’t like to encourage people to buy things," Leonard concluded wryly. "But buy it, and then give it to your local library later."
Posted by: Michael Arndt on November 05
Mayo Clinic is moving toward becoming more of a virtual hospital. The not-for-profit complex just announced a telemedicine collaboration this morning with a Swiss semiconductor company, STMicroelectronics, to monitor the condition of cardiac patients from outside their hospital rooms. Patients would wear a lightweight device that would pick up such information as heart and breathing rates and beam the data to medical personnel.
A trial involving 10 patients begins today (Nov. 5). These patients will be monitored while in the clinic in Rochester, Minn., to test the equipment and to train hospital personnel. Mayo plans to move on to a trial with discharged patients in early 2010, says Dr. Virend Somers, a consulting cardiologist and professor of medicine.
Talking with me before the official announcement, Somers acknowledged that telemedicine at Mayo is hardly brand new; the hospital has been taking readings from heart patients through at-home devices for years. But he said the STMicroelectronics technology should be more adaptable. For instance, it might be programmed to send real-time data 24/7, or for patients in less critical condition, it could record data and upload it once a day or week.
"The question is how can we make a comprehensive, unobtrusive, user-friendly, and economic remote monitoring system all together," he said.
The device and monitoring system costs money, of course. The clinical trials are also aimed at finding out whether they're worth it. Somers says he's fairly certain it will lower both technology and personnel costs. Time will tell, as they say.
Posted by: Michael Arndt on November 04
Ford Motor may have cheered investors with back-to-back reports this week that it netted almost $1 billion in the third quarter and increased its market share and year-over-year sales in October. (See this report from my BW colleague David Welch.) But the No. 3 car seller in the U.S. is laps behind in the alternative energy race, says a new study from Thomson Reuters.
The financial info company tallied patents and patent applications in alternative energy, an area it considers to be a proxy for automotive innovation, from 2008 through 2009's first quarter. Ford finished 12th, with 137 patent grants and filings. No. 1 Toyota Motor had 2,899—or 21 times more than Ford. Even General Motors bested Ford, coming in fourth, with 451 patent documents. (GM also outsells Ford, as does Toyota.)
Thomson Reuters also examined patent data in two other areas on the forefront of innovation—vehicle security and navigation—in 2003 and again in 2008 and the first quarter of this year. Ford didn't make the top 20 in any of these rankings.
Not to dump too much on Ford, I should note that it is moving up in alt-energy patents. In 2003, the carmaker wasn't even in the top 20, with 43 grants and applications. In 2008, it was 13th, with 116. I have asked Ford for a response, but haven't heard back.
For the record, here's the top 12 list in alternative-powered vehicle patents in the most recent five-quarter period:
1. Toyota 2,899
2. Nissan 601
3. Hyundai 549
4. GM 451
5. Honda 449
6. Matsushita 383
7. Nippondenso 334
8. Sanyo 219
9. Sumitomo 198
10. Hitachi 196
11. Bosch 144
12. Ford 137
