Comments on: Avoiding and Solving the Innovator’s Dilemma

By: Konstantyn

Konstantyn — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:29:24 +0000

Jafet,
here is a feedback from the trenches. It would be an ideal world if the decision makers would believe any LOGICAL explanation that is any deductive or conducive prove. Most parts they don’t. The only convincing prove is a month to month report how many mice had been killed by the non-mousetrap product. Neither report nor killed mice are attainable by design of innovation process.

By: Jafet Ramirez

Jafet Ramirez — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:23:14 +0000

Bob,

Thank you for keeping me up to date in the Ideative Process. In this week´s Businessweek (Jan 25, 2010) there is a very interesting article on Innovation by Roger Martin and Jennifer Riel. While I will not go over the whole article here, it states that an innovative concept is usually killed with two words: Prove it. It explains that such an ending can be explained since the impulse of the subject of an innovative idea is to ask for proof from either / or two directions: deductive (the application of a widely held rule) and inductive (developing a new rule from a wide range of data). We can easily see how innovation can be suspended in full, or at best, slowed significantly under these predicaments. They suggest “abduction” as a the solution; “the process of creatively assembling the disparate experiences and bits of data that seem relevant in order to make an inference – a logical leap – to the best possible conclusion.” The article provides some examples and additional points to support their claim. In my mind there are many ways to spark innovation within an organization, the best I have seen to date is to establish a clear direction to reach a goal and stimulate creativity to achieve it. It is ironic that in the same BW edition, Apple’s decision making driver is described as: “Because Steve says so”.

Jafet Ramirez
LuZan, Inc.
http://www.MulticulturalMarketingConsulting.com

By: Easy

Easy — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:05:01 +0000

Robert,
I really enjoyed your decription of Company A’s mouse trap features – poetic elegance! It captures the reality of high-tech firms that focus entirely on the top of the market pyramid – so called Tier 1.

The challenge boils down to maintaining an entrpreneurial mindset inside large companies – a practical oxymoron. Your readers will at least have an awareness of their “blindside”.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:14:58 +0000

This reminds me of of a couple things.
1. Sun Tzu would heartily agree with you about viewing your company and its products through the eyes of a competitor.

2. There’s also a school of thought called “Good Enough.” Wired did a piece about the Flip camcorder with this in mind. It’s a cheap small camcorder without bells and whistles and for most users it is is all they really need. Some food for thought…
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/magazine/17-09/ff_goodenough

There’s nothing wrong with having a product line to fill the niches you identify. Just make sure to fill those niches better than anyone else.