Group Blogs, Wikis and FriendFeed- Participation Drives Innovation

A post, Using FriendFeed Rooms for Work: What's Needed?, by a fellow blogger, Hutch Carpenter, started me thinking about how the web can and often does play a role in the innovation process... and what could make it better. As I've discussed in this blog and with my clients, we at Atomica believe that strategic new product development requires participation by managers from a variety of different department. Often that is neither practical nor possible with far flung divisions and busy schedules.

Early solutions to this problem included conference calls and later, video conferencing. These options is of course subject to the same types of challenges as in house meetings are- schedule conflict, tardiness and inattentiveness. Some issues relate to the off-site nature of these gatherings. The distraction of interruption by phone or physical presence... by those who disregard a closed office door and the temptation to multi-task when one is cozily situated at one's desk staring at a full inbox.

Newer web based solutions have started to surface and, in general have allowed managers to overcome some of the drawbacks of both virtual and actual meetings. The asynchronous nature of most web applications allows users to overcome the drawbacks mentioned earlier of unfocused attendees in teleconferences and video conferences. Multi tasking, contrary to popular opinion, actually results in a loss of productivity, not a gain.

By allowing workers to access the group site in their own time, the propensity of group members to concentrate solely on the activity at hand increases. This leads to more and responsiveness and better communication.

An early web application, group blogs, has turned out to be excellent for brainstorming. The open nature of a group blog allows participants to express their thoughts and comment on others, building upon one or several central ideas and keeping a running record of the conversation. They do, however, tend to favor those participants with the strongest writing skills, often the marketing folks who tend to try to run the show anyway. This can lead to minimal input from those with a more technical bend, often the engineering folks who have the basic information required to make the project a success.

Wikis, popular in many companies for group projects, solve some of the problems related to document exchange and provide a forum for users to post messages and comment on them. Rather than digging through the overcrowded in box for email messages pertaining to the project, group members have one central storage place for everything. There are some drawbacks though.

The land of wikis is well developed, but most of them suffer from only emphasizing multiple user changes to documents and revision tracking. They lack the interactive participation that makes FriendFeed so compelling.

Friendfeed however, shows real possibilities. This application allows sharing of a variety of different types of media including web pages, documents, image files and videos and provides rooms for group meetings. Adding wikis to Friendfeed would offer the best of both worlds and greatly improve the level of participation of various users in group projects. Hutch Carpenter offers some ideas on how to do this effectively.

Rooms already have three key elements for making them into wikis:

- Ability to manage who the room members are

- Room-specific search

- RSS directly into rooms

Here are my four features for wikifying FriendFeed rooms:

1. Better handling of RSS feeds for document changes

2. Sticky setting for entries

3. Timestamp comments

4. New comments and entries notification

Because participation is key to effective innovation and we live in a world where distance increasingly is meaningless, we must come up with better ways to enable managers to effectively interact. As the web continues to evolve, I'm sure we'll continue to see better applications.

On the other hand, there will still always be that one member of the group that never contributes his share.

The Role Of Intellectual Property in Innovation

A colleague of mine recently had a conversation with Nancy Edwards Cronin of ipCapital Group, a consultancy focused on developing effective intellectual property strategies. Since patents can play such a big role in whether or not many innovations succeed, or just provide a springboard for competitors, Nancy had a lot to say in the area of innovation.

With her background in engineering, Nancy speaks easily to techies and notes that communication is one of the areas in which the innovation process can get bogged down. One trend that she is seeing, particularly in the technical products arena, is this lack of communication between sales and marketing and engineering has led to a greater emphasis on the look, feel and branding of the product rather than what goes in the bottle.

We too are seeing this trend in the marketplace. Product marketing, often left until last, should be conducted at the front end of innovation. A focus on providing customer value in the early stages of product development results in a product that meets consumer needs not just a marketing campaign that tries to do so.

This focus on the marketplace, an unbalanced approach, can cause companies to neglect proper intellectual property protection and, particularly for young companies can be devastating. On the other hand, investing time and effort into IP protection can be useless for smaller companies without the financial wherewithal to defend it. Edwards Cronin advises that often incremental innovation, capitalizing on existing distribution channels and technologies will often yield greater results than "blue sky" technologies, but this too has its drawbacks.

... companies that have historically operated on incremental improvements now find that they struggle to come up with the next "brand new thing. Further, the new ideas they develop may already be claimed in the marketplace or in the patent literature. They may also overlook the need to protect their innovations early and lose valuable ownership of their investment. Worst of all, they may determine that even their best innovations aren't aligned to the direction of the business, thus becoming a wasted expenditure of valuable development time and money.

On the flip side, many entrepreneurs start out with a technical idea and develop products but have little idea of how to sell them or even understand the marketability of these products

With her firm's emphasis on patent protection, Edwards Cronin had a lot to say in this area. She advises making protection of intellectual property a key part of any innovation strategy. Proper patent search and competitive analysis should take a front seat in the process.

As executives lead their organizations to be more innovative and expand their collaboration efforts, they are recognizing the unmistakable connection between innovation and IP. When developed and employed strategically, IP may be used to protect their innovation investment and maximize the success of the collaboration.

ipCapital Group has developed an "invention session" that they use with their clients to ensure that technological innovation is on the right track. These sessions, based on a team approach, bring managers from multiple disciplines into the innovation process from the start and address key issues that are often forgotten in the rush to market. Understanding the marketability of the idea is key before starting any patent process. This is especially important for new companies that have limited resources.

By ensuring that technology in development meets the needs of the marketplace, valuable time is not wasted pursuing unmarketable ideas. By considering the importance of intellectual property rights to the success of the project early on, appropriate patents can be applied for and protected, of considerable importance in highly technical fields.

We at Atomica consider this multi-disciplinary approach indispensable to any innovation process. As the role that technology plays in a wide variety of fields grows and matures, remembering to protect intellectual property and ensure that it is a good fit with the organization and with consumers is critical.

Survey Ranks U.S. Tops In Fostering Innovation - But Rest of The World Gaining

A recent survey recognized the leadership role that the US has played in innovation over the last century , but notes how other countries are gaining.

"The U.S. maintains the top spot as the global technology leader in innovation," said Mark Jensen, national managing partner of Deloitte's Venture Capital Services. "While the U.S. isn't losing ground, the globalization of innovation is underway. The rest of the world is finding out what they're good at, and venture capitalists recognize where those strengths lie."

In Europe, the focus is on life sciences and clean technologies, two high growth areas that are attracting capital and a growing legion of workers. In Asia, technological innovation has moved to the forefront, though selected life science research centers are becoming common as private and government funding in Asian economies increases.

In Singapore, for example:

A key focus of the economic strategy has been the subsidized attraction of investment by multinational companies, and later in the period the lower employment cost of foreign workers. As the economy grew, labor became limiting, and immigration policy became a key economic growth tool.

Taken as a whole, it is policy, culture and strategic planning that results in effective innovation, for not only countries, but for individual companies. Often ignored by entrepreneurs and more often by large corporations, is understanding how innovation fits into the framework of the existing company.

While out-of-the-box thinking often results in new products and services that change the world, that thinking is usually most effective when it exists with the underpinnings that make an effective launch possible. We see this in failed and successful innovative ventures around the world.

"The Japanese government was one of the first to recognize the value of developing and maintaining a pervasive, high-speed broadband infrastructure throughout the country, fueling significant innovation around the next generation of broadband applications,"

Hence Japan as has attracted venture capital and interest from growing internet firms like Yahoo!. As more firms capitalize on this framework, more innovation results.

In Germany, a country that has a long history of interest in all things green, new eco technology innovation is thriving.

"Germany is the beneficiary of a well conceived, stable public policy that has ensured attractive markets for alternative energy technologies. This combined with a strong general technology base, has fostered substantial innovation in the space," said David Prend, partner, Rockport Capital. "As a result, for example, Germany, a country with marginal sun, is a leader in solar photovoltaic technology that they export to the rest of the world. Venture capital follows quality technology and innovation."

But don't worry about the U.S., venture capitalists still view the US as the leader in innovation. Whether or not that will continue to remain the case, remains to be seen.

Innovation Opportunity In The Beverage Industry - Niche Marketing

We are fans of niche marketing. Innovating effectively means creating new products and services that will sell to a particular consumer. In today's crowded arena that market is often a small but growing group of consumers. An article in Food Navigator discusses this trend and explains some of the impetus for niche innovation driving the beverage industry.

Fragmentation in consumers' needs and preferences has stimulated the growth of American niche beverages, according to analysts.

The sale of flagships products has stagnated, forcing beverage companies to broaden their portfolios, said Stephen Rannekleiv, vice president for Rabobank's beverage, food and agribusiness research and advisory division.

The niche demand is a significant new trend in the beverage industry, he said, speaking in a company podcast. Another new trend is the desire for products that are better for the environment.

Large beverage companies, with their eye on emerging trends, are aggressively developing niche products. This is making it very hard for small to medium sized beverage companies to complete. Large companies however have the challenge of brand identity, developing an effective niche marketing strategy then sometimes means forgoing the flagship brand as Coke did when launching Dasani Water.

Alternately large brands can stick closer to home and explore niche markets complementary their flagship brand. Gatorade recently signed a deal with Tiger Woods to license his name on a new drink. Will Gatorade be attempting to increase market share among golfers or with the multitude of younger athletes who are Tiger fan? Gatorade isn't saying just yet.

Smaller and medium size companies, on the other hand are perfectly positioned to explore niche markets too small as of yet for the big players. While larger companies pile on the emerging trend in healthier drinks, smaller companies are free to explore niches within that niche.

Some promising trends that have been identified include beauty food. Already big in Japan the market for natural beauty enhancers is growing. Topical ointments and creams are available to the in the U.S. but beauty and enhancing food and beverages are limited.

Other areas of growth are children's health food, mood enhancing and functional foods and beverages that deliver specific health benefits. These categories are, as of yet too small for major beverage manufacturers to capture but are perfect for smaller and medium sized-companies.

Both large and smaller companies will do well to keep an eye on the growth of functional beverages. As Westerners continue to be exposed to a wide variety of food from all over the world, the health benefits of those foods become better known. An aging population in much of North America and Europe means more health problems and greater interest in ways that lifestyle can impact longevity.

Exotic fruits and regionally popular extracts are making their way into Western culture. Super fruits from South America should soon be joined by emerging exotics from Africa. Flavoe profiles are changing too. Unfamiliar flavors, to the Western palate at least are slowly making their way into the mainstream. Green tea is being followed by varietal flavors of popular fruits such as orange and grape.

All of these trends are becoming popular on the fringes, many will find a solid niche and some will become as popular as the once "hippie food" yogurt, spawning their own niches in time.