Define the Opportunity
The dynamics of trends are constantly providing new opportunities in the marketplace, and the research and knowledge of key stakeholders will reveal multiple opportunities within the specified strategy area. Using …
Identify an Area of Strategic Importance
First, pick a general area of strategic importance to the company or target market. This could be a key market for your company, such as baby boomer males who run …
A Process for Pragmatic Innovation
The natural question, then, is how to innovate. As Peter Drucker and others have written before, innovation is not serendipity but the outcome of disciplined activity. What is the nature …
A Sound Basis for Vision (Yes, You Can Go with Your Instinct)
Ambiguity is common, especially in innovation, and it is the uncommon individual who has the vision to make good decisions when dealing with ambiguity. These individuals must be willing to …
The Ambiguity of Figuring Out Winning Products
Early product development entails numerous choices, and it seems at first glance like these choices could be 100 percent left brain or analytical activity. For instance, the product development team …
The Role of Marketing in the Early Stages of Product Development
in the companies that we have worked with, marketing professionals are often not involved directly with innovation. They are involved prior to innovation by setting strategic directions, and they are …
Launching the Adidas 1
Athletic apparel companies intensely compete for each customer. in fact, in some ways, their behavior is much like that of their most intense users, the hard-core runners. Many serious runners …
Of Business
Despite the pervasive view that innovation depends on serendipitous inspirations from creative individuals, today’s innovative companies rely on disciplined research and procedures to achieve innovation. These procedures for creativity are …
Surfing the Waves of Innovation
The marketplace emphasis on innovation is not going to go away. it is here to stay, and the rules are not as obvious as in the era of mass consumption …
The Global Dimension of Innovation
In terms of product and service development, three major changes are affecting the world we live in. The first is the balance of global production and consumption; the second is …
Innovation—The New Mandate
Not only are firms returning to innovation as a central source for growth and sustained viability in the competitive marketplace, they also recognize that the greatest growth potential comes from …
Manufacturing Quality—The New Commodity
BodyMedia's success comes from a pragmatic approach to innovation. Any company producing a product or service that wants to differentiate, that wants to avoid being a commodity, must innovate. Innovation …
Innovation in Start-Ups
on the twelfth floor in a renovated office building at the foot of the Smithfield Street Bridge, a famous Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, landmark built two centuries ago, sits an entrepreneurial high-tech …
Moving from Invention to Innovation at Ford: The Redesign of the F-150
The Model T was an invention that made the automobile accessible to the middle-class, mostly male, consumer 100 years ago. The recent trend in the pickup industry, which is both …
Pragmatic Innovation (and How It Differs from Invention)
one of the key concepts to understand is how innovation today differs from invention and why innovation in business must be pragmatic. When Thomas Edison developed the system of electrification …
A Mandate for Change
in their struggle to adapt to the new forces affecting the development of emerging products and services, executives of many companies find themselves “drinking from a fire hose.” These managers …
Pragmatic Innovation — The New Mandate
As companies struggle to look for ways to compete against low-margin overseas competitors, they must turn to their creative side because cost-cutting manufacturing and quality initiatives no longer provide the …
Innovation Revealed
This book is about people. It is about the innovators who envision and create new products and services for the new global economy. it is also about the people who …
So Who Are the New Breed of Innovators?
Edith Harmon, Chuck Jones, and Dee Kapur are the new breed of innovators. They have achieved a pragmatic sense of balance between the pressing needs of business and the open-ended …
The New Breed of Innovator: Engineering and Advanced Thinking
Edith Harmon's bachelor's and master's degrees are in mechanical engineering. But today, she heads one of the most dynamic advanced products groups in the clothing industry. Unlike a fashion company …
The New Breed of Innovator: Global Brand and Industrial Design
It was August, and Chuck Jones was at Michigan International Speedway competing in a vintage Indy car race. Jones started racing cars at the rather young age of 8, turned …
The New Breed of Innovator: Pragmatic Business
At the age of 18, Dee Kapur left India and arrived in New York City on the first leg of his journey to California to attend Stanford University. His flight …
Innovator
Innovation is about people. Companies focus on customer needs, wants, and desires as they design new products; after all, products are purchased by and for those who will use them. …
Acknowledgments
As with any major endeavor, there are many people to thank for their input to this book and our thinking about this work. Particular recognition and thanks go out to …
Deconstructing Innovation
Everyone is talking and writing about innovation. It is the fuel of business strategy. Design and innovation are words that are often used together or interchangeably. Design for us is …
What to Expect from This Book
Two guys walk into a Starbucks and wave to a woman at a table. After getting their lattes, they head over and join her. Paul: Hey, Caroline, looks like you …
About the Cover
Burnie is our animated robotic toaster, the one on the book cover. You may be wondering why we put Burnie there, since he is not a real product like the …
About the Authors
The Design of Things. to Come
If there is one lesson from the dot-com craze and meltdown that will endure (until the next time, anyway), it was this: A great idea is not the same thing …
